Sec. Clinton issues warning to Iran in Israel
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, left, meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Israel, Monday, July 16, 2012. / AP Photo
(AP) JERUSALEM - The U.S. will use its power to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton declared Monday after meeting top Israeli officials, where they discussed the issue.
She said the U.S. would keep raising the pressure on Iran as long as it fails to come clean on its disputed uranium enrichment program.
"Iran is under greater pressure now than ever before," she said. "We will use all elements of American power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon."
The veiled threat came as the U.S. and Israel debate how best to deal with Iran's nuclear program. The U.S. is seeking more time for negotiations and sanctions, while Israel has repeatedly hinted at military action.
Both suspect Iran may be aiming toward producing nuclear weapons, a claim Iran denies.
After her declaration about possible use of U.S. power, Clinton said everyone prefers a diplomatic resolution, and that Israel and the U.S were "on the same page" regarding Iran.
"Iran's leaders still have the opportunity to make the right decision. The choice is ultimately Iran's," she said, adding that so far Iran's proposals have been "non-starters."
Throughout her day of meetings, Clinton also spoke about the need to halt Syria's violence and underscored America's support for Israel - an ally in a difficult neighborhood.
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Clinton met President Shimon Peres for about an hour as part of what is perhaps her final visit to Israel as secretary of state, bringing a message of solidarity to the Jewish state after three and a half years of only stunted progress toward a Palestinian peace deal.
After their visit, they each issued a statement to reporters without taking questions. Peres spoke about the importance of maintaining Israel's three-decade peace with Egypt, and decried the violence in neighboring Syria.
He also voiced support for the Obama administration's pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear activities - which has sometimes been a point of contention between the U.S and Israel.
Clinton said she spoke with Peres about "Egypt and Syria, peace efforts, Iran and other regional and global issues."
She later met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks with Phongsavath Souliyalat, who lost his forearms and sight when an unexploded bomb left from the Vietnam War exploded in his hands, in Vientiane, Laos, July 11, 2012.
/ Pool,AP Photo/Brendon SmialowskiShe returns to Washington early Tuesday, ending a 12-day, nine-country trip that included stops in Europe and Asia.
Her visit to Israel follows a weekend visit by President Barack Obama's National Security Adviser Tom Donilon. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is expected to visit Israel soon.
Although Monday's agenda was designed to cover the breadth of U.S.-Israeli relations, the lack of action on peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians was in the spotlight.
Negotiations have almost been nonexistent for the duration of Obama's term in office. They resumed briefly two years ago before stumbling over the same set of problems, namely Palestinian demands for a freeze on Jewish settlements in lands they seek for their future state and an Israeli insistence on no preconditions for talks.
Asked in an interview Sunday with WJLA-TV, a Washington D.C. station, what he believed he failed at, Obama cited Arab-Israeli peace efforts.
"I have not been able to move the peace process forward in the Middle East the way I wanted," he said. "It's something we focused on very early. But the truth of the matter is that the parties, they've got to want it as well."
Clinton hasn't visited Israel since September 2010. With little to show for U.S. efforts on a two-state peace agreement and a hectic schedule before she steps down as secretary of state next year, it is unlikely she'll return. Clinton has said she would leave the post, even if Obama wins a second term.
The flurry of visits by top U.S. officials to Israel could reflect an administration attempt to shore up Obama's support among Jewish voters as the election nears. The president has pushed back forcefully against Republican claims that he is weak in defending Israel's security, and GOP candidate Mitt Romney is planning to visit Israel later this month.
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During my first of many interviews with Israel's Nuclear Whistle Blower, Mordechai Vanunu, he told me:
"Did you know that President Kennedy tried to stop Israel from building atomic weapons? In 1963, he forced Prime Minister Ben Guirion to admit the Dimona was not a textile plant, as the sign outside proclaimed, but a nuclear plant. The Prime Minister said, 'The nuclear reactor is only for peace.'
"Kennedy insisted on an open internal inspection. He wrote letters demanding that Ben Guirion open up the Dimona for inspection.
"The French were responsible for the actual building of the Dimona. The Germans gave the money; they were feeling guilty for the Holocaust, and tried to pay their way out. Everything inside was written in French, when I was there, almost twenty years ago. Back then, the Dimona descended seven floors underground.
"In 1955, Perez and Guirion met with the French to agree they would get a nuclear reactor if they fought against Egypt to control the Sinai and Suez Canal. That was the war of 1956. Eisenhower demanded that Israel leave the Sinai, but the reactor plant deal continued on.
"When Johnson became president, he made an agreement with Israel that two senators would come every year to inspect. Before the senators would visit, the Israelis would build a wall to block the underground elevators and stairways. From 1963 to '69, the senators came, but they never knew about the wall that hid the rest of the Dimona from them.
"Nixon stopped the inspections and agreed to ignore the situation. As a result, Israel increased production. In 1986, there were over two hundred bombs. Today, they may have enough plutonium for ten bombs a year." -"BEYOND NUCLEAR: Mordechai Vanunu's FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and My Life as a Muckraker: 2005-2010" by Eileen Fleming
In April 1999, thirty-six members of the US House of Representatives signed a letter calling for Vanunu's release from prison because they believed "we have a duty to stand up for men and women like Mordechai Vanunu who dare to articulate a brighter vision for humanity."
President Clinton responded with a public statement expressing concern for Vanunu and the need for Israel and other non-parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty to adhere to it and accept IAEA safeguards.
Ever since the silence has been deafening and Vanunu is still waiting for his right to leave Israel and this author, reporter is now a candidate of conscience for US HOUSE, District 5, Florida.
I am Eileen Fleming and I approve of all of my messages.
Why are you an apologist for Israel's evil?
I apologize for no one.
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You apologize for Israel.
QED.
We must help these people who are tragically held in the grip of 'religious thinking'.
Many posters here need improvement with regard to their fomenting and inciting additional bad-spirited feelings and hate.
Help put an end to divisive, destructive and deadly religious fantasy, as well as getting out of the 'hate business'.
You seem pretty afraid that Israel has nuclear weapons, though there is no proof that they do.
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We gave them to them. AND they won't let the IAEA in. So why are they hiding their nuclear stockpile from inspection? Why have they NOT signed the non-proliferation treaty???
And supremacy - they have NOT signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and have NOT admitted IAEA inspectors. That's verifiable FACT.
Iran has agreed to international inspections, and signed the nuclear non proliferation treaty. The Apartheid Israeli Welfare State has done neither.
by Jame_Gum
Why the hell would we want to see what Israel has? They're our allies and aren't going to attack us or our other allies!
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Please tell us all when Israel has EVER ACTED LIKE OUR ALLY?
They haven't, quite simply.
The rest of the world sees it, but the US has been blinded to the fact by religious zealots who will spend us broke on them.
It's fiscally liberal to defend Israel militarily, and just plain liberal to tarnish our image by sticking up for their criminal acts.
.
Finding resolution to our religiously-based, end-of-the-world scenario, requires that our genuinely responsible world leaders - many of who use religion for votes and/or support - phase out religion and teaching of religiously-based incitement to destroy, hate and murder.
If the Apocalyptic-minded Iranian regime reaches nuclear capability, then don't bother re-setting The Doomsday Clock. The current Iranian leadership plans and PRAYS FOR Nuclear War to usher in The Mahdi's or Islamic Messiah's arrival.
'Freedom of religion' is not such a great thing after all!
As stated, the Israelis are forced to remain constantly vigilant in order to prevent suicide bombings, and murder of its civilians.
Also, check out the oppression of non-Moslems in Arab and Islamic countries.
That will likely fit your definition of apartheid.
And Sarge,
Can you agree that the religious crap which was passed on - by force and not by choice - to members of the Three Abrahamic religions, is the root cause of hate, intolerance, and 'religious reasons' which justify the murder-and-die-for mindset?
These people need help to extricate them from the grip, in which the dangerous
fantasy of religion and IMMUTABLE religious mindset, continues to hold them.
Israel is waging a war of attrition and brazen attacks.