French President François Hollande welcomed with official ceremony at Ben-Gurion airport on Sunday • Hollande will be visiting Knesset, Palestinian Authority • Netanyahu: We salute Hollande's consistent stance and determination on Iran.
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French President François Hollande arrived in Israel on Sunday for his first state visit ahead of his departure to Geneva for the upcoming round of nuclear talks between Iran and the world powers on Wednesday. Hollande was joined in Israel by his partner Valerie Trierweiler and a 200-person entourage, including advisors, ministers, businessmen and journalists.
In his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the French visit, saying, "they are coming as friends and will be welcomed as friends."
The French president was welcomed with an official ceremony at Ben-Gurion International Airport. Later, he was to be taken to the presidential residence in Jerusalem and visit Mount Herzl and the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum. He was to meet with President Shimon Peres and Netanyahu over the course of the day, and was invited for a private dinner at the prime minister's official residence Sunday evening.
On Monday, Hollande will visit the Palestinian Authority, and will later address the Knesset and attend a state dinner at the presidential residence.
"This visit is important at any time, for the bilateral relationship between Israel and France, but of course, also in light of the talks taking place in Geneva on the Iranian nuclear issue," Netanyahu said. "We will discuss this topic on top of many other topics on the agenda."
Ahead of Hollande's visit, Netanyahu has been making efforts to fracture the unanimity of the six powers leading up to the emerging nuclear deal with Iran. In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro, Netanyahu said he hopes France will not soften its stance against the deal. He complemented Hollande on his position in the last round of talks, saying "we salute his consistent stance and [his] determination on the Iranian issue." Netanyahu further stated that Iran must not be allowed to bolster its heavy water reactors or continue enriching uranium, explaining that the Islamic republic is currently developing intercontinental missiles, not to reach Israel, "but to reach Paris and Washington."
"Tactical disagreements"
Netanyahu added that there is a consensus among Israeli and Arab leaders that Iran has dangerous intentions: "This is one of the only times I remember, if not the first time in the modern era, that Israel and many leading states in the Arab world see completely eye-to-eye on a specific topic: We all think that we must not give up on Iran and we must not allow it the capability to produce nuclear weapons. When Israel and the Arabs see eye-to-eye on a particular topic, the world should pay attention. Nuclear weapons in Iranian hands will be the most dangerous development for world peace since the Holocaust."
The Iranian issue will remain at the center of Sunday's meeting between Hollande and Netanyahu, and on Wednesday and Thursday, Netanyahu will visit Moscow to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the same issue. Newly reinstated Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman will be acting prime minister during Netanyahu's absence.
Netanyahu will further discuss the Iranian nuclear program with Secretary of State John Kerry during his upcoming visit to Israel later this week. "I would also like to clarify that even between the best of friends there can be disagreements, especially on topics tied to our future and our fate," Netanyahu told the cabinet, regarding the split in American and Israeli approaches to the nuclear deal.
Netanyahu's criticism of the emerging deal with Iran did not go unnoticed by the Americans. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki reacted on Thursday to Netanyahu's tweet calling to oppose Iran's "dream deal." Psaki said "the place where we diverge a bit is on the tactical level, where we believe we need a first step that halts Iran's program to give us time to negotiate this long-term agreement and they [the Israelis] believe we should just keep upping the pressure on Iran to get them to capitulate all at once to a long-term agreement," adding that "we don't, obviously, think that's a path that is possible.
"I think we're looking at multiple tracks here, including our continued pursuit of seeing whether a diplomatic path is possible. The alternative in our view is a path to war," Psaki said.
"We think the path to diplomacy is the right path," she added.
Netanyahu is not ready to accept the deal despite opposing American sentiment. "I hope we will succeed to convince our friends this week and in the following days, to obtain a much better deal. And it is possible to reach that. Iran is under economic pressure, and continuing this pressure, even strengthening it, can lead to a much better outcome from the diplomatic solution on the path to peace," he said.
Internal disagreements in the U.S.
The Emergency Committee for Israel, a conservative American organization that supports Israel operating in Washington and is heavily critical of Obama, released on Thursday a video titled "Obama's March to War." The broadcast, which attacks the U.S. president, presents him as untrustworthy after failing to uphold his promises, including those regarding the Iranian issue. At the end of the video, Obama is shown promising that Iran will not get nuclear weapons. His claim is followed by a nuclear explosion on screen accompanied by his voice consoling American citizens who were harmed by his promises for health insurance.
The internal debate about sanctions in the U.S. is growing. Two days after dubbing John Kerry a "human wrecking ball" for his approach to the Iranian issue, Senator John McCain swallowed his words, saying he would not support increasing sanctions on Iran: "I am skeptical of talks with Iran but willing to give the Obama administration a couple months." Like him, several other senators initially supporting an increase in sanctions have changed their minds.
There are legislators who are still interested in expanding sanctions, including Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who, along with three other senators, wrote a letter to Obama expressing concerns about lifting sanctions on Iran.
"A real chance for a deal"
Meanwhile, ahead of the resumption of talks between Iran and the six powers on Wednesday, the signs of an emerging deal are growing. An American government official said Thursday that the U.S. and the other powers are "approaching an interim deal." According to him, such a deal will delay the "breakout," needed by Iran to attain a nuclear bomb. It will also decrease warning times if the deal were to be breached.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said over the weekend that dissent is at a minimum. He added that there is a real chance to reach a deal in the coming week. "The negotiations with the foreign minister of Iran [Mohammad Javad Zarif] have confirmed that for the first time in many years the sextet of negotiators and Tehran are ready to truly seek common grounds instead of presenting mostly uncorrelated positions," said Lavrov.
In contrast, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif said that recognition of uranium enrichment is paramount to a deal. "Any agreement that does not recognize the rights of the Iranian people and does not respect these rights, has no chance," he said, adding that he is hopeful about the upcoming talks.
The New York Times published an editorial titled "Not the Time to Squeeze Iran" on Friday, claiming that the chances for a diplomatic solution on the nuclear issue are in danger "because many lawmakers, urged on by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, are insisting that Congress impose tougher economic sanctions, perhaps next week as an amendment to the defense bill."
According to the article, despite the success of the sanctions in bringing Iran to the negotiating table, "Israel, groups like the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies and lawmakers like Senator Mark Kirk, Republican of Illinois, want to ratchet up the pressure. Their stated aim is to force Iran to completely dismantle its nuclear program."
Dismantling the program would be ideal for the West, the article says, but it is not reasonable to expect new sanctions to convince Iran "to abandon an enterprise in which it has invested billions of dollars and a great deal of national pride." If Iran abandons the negotiations "Washington will be blamed, the international unity supporting the network of sanctions already in place will unravel, and countries that have reduced imports of oil from Iran will find fewer reasons to continue doing so." It goes on to warn against allowing for the possibility of unintentionally prompting the Iranians to accelerate their nuclear program in the event of a diplomatic failure, which could lead to an American military intervention.
The editorial concludes with a warning: "President Obama deserves more time to work out a negotiated settlement with Iran and the other major powers. If the deals falls through, or if inspections by the United Nations unearth cheating, Congress can always impose more sanctions then. But if talks fail now, Mr. Netanyahu and the hard-line interest groups will own the failure, and the rest of us will pay the price."
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