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The Bethlehem-based news agency Ma’an has cited a Kuwaiti newspaper report Saturday, that US President Barack Obama thwarted an Israeli military attack against Iran's nuclear facilities in 2014 by threatening to shoot down Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran. Following Obama's threat, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was reportedly forced to abort the planned Iran attack. According to Al-Jarida, the Netanyahu government took the decision to strike Iran some time in 2014 soon after Israel had discovered the United States and Iran had been involved in secret talks over Iran’s nuclear program and were about to sign...

President Barack Obama threatened to shoot down Israeli planes in 2014 if they were sent to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, according to reports attributed to a Kuwaiti newspaper. According to the website Israel National News, the Bethlehem-based news agency Ma'an cites Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida. Al-Jarida reports that the alleged threat from the White House forced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel the planned attack. President Barack Obama threatened to shoot down Israeli planes in 2014 if they were sent to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, according to reports attributed to a Kuwaiti newspaper. According to the website Israel National News,...

The Bethlehem-based news agency Ma’an has cited a Kuwaiti newspaper report Saturday, that US President Barack Obama thwarted an Israeli military attack against Iran's nuclear facilities in 2014 by threatening to shoot down Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran. Following Obama's threat, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was reportedly forced to abort the planned Iran attack. According to Al-Jarida, the Netanyahu government took the decision to strike Iran some time in 2014 soon after Israel had discovered the United States and Iran had been involved in secret talks over Iran’s nuclear program and were about to sign...

Secretary of State John Kerry said today he stands by his statement that Americans are facing fewer daily threats, even though he's received heavy criticism for his remarks. In an exclusive interview with ABC News' Martha Raddatz on "This Week," explained the rationale behind his claims to Congress earlier this week, which came at the same time Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, said this has been the most lethal year for global terrorism. "Well, I understand," he said. "Of course I understand it, Martha, because people are thinking about the day-to-day vision of what is happening on the...

Two days before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to speak to a joint session of Congress, Secretary of State John Kerry said the prime minister is welcome to speak in the U.S. but worries it injects far too much politics into the relationship. “The prime minister of Israel is welcome to speak in the United States, obviously,” Kerry said today in an exclusive interview on ABC’s "This Week." “I talk to the prime minister regularly, including yesterday." But, Kerry added, "we don't want to see this turned into some great political football.” Kerry echoed frustrations expressed by the...

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming address to a joint meeting of Congress will probably be the most important speech of his career — and one that has already jeopardized relations between Israel and the United States. On Tuesday morning, Netanyahu will confront an American president and insist that the future of the State of Israel, and the world, is imperiled by a pending “bad deal” with Iran on its nuclear program. Also hanging in the balance is Netanyahu’s own political future. Just two weeks after the speech, Netanyahu will either be reelected to a historic fourth term as...

The Bethlehem-based news agency Ma’an has cited a Kuwaiti newspaper report Saturday, that US President Barack Obama thwarted an Israeli military attack against Iran's nuclear facilities in 2014 by threatening to shoot down Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran. According to Al-Jarida, the Netanyahu government took the decision to strike Iran some time in 2014 soon after Israel had discovered the United States and Iran had been involved in secret talks over Iran’s nuclear program and were about to sign an agreement in that regard behind Israel's back. The report claimed that an unnamed Israeli minister...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday tried to calm tensions with Israel before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's congressional address, yet insisted the Obama administration's diplomatic record with Iran entitles the U.S. to "the benefit of the doubt" as negotiators work toward a long-term nuclear deal.

<p>That’s what will certainly happen if the Obama administration, as now looks increasingly likely, reaches a deal that preserves Iran as a nuclear “breakout” power.</p> <p>“Breakout” is a key word. It means that instead of permanently ensuring Tehran never gets a nuke, the goal of the deal would be to keep Tehran a year away from the ability to develop nuclear weapons for at least a decade.</p>

Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal took aim at the White House for “disrespecting Israel and the Jewish people” after it was revealed that President Barack Obama’s authorization for the use of military force against the Islamic State (IS) failed to mention that Jews are a prime target of the terror group, according to a statement provided to the Washington Free Beacon. Obama’s war authorization came under fire on Wednesday after Rep. Lee Zeldin (R., N.Y.), Congress’ only Jewish Republican, noted that the resolution specifically omits Jewish people as one of IS’s (also known as ISIS and ISIL) chief targets. It...

After announcing he will be skipping Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu”s speech to Congress for a trip abroad, US Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry both met on Saturday with Labor leader Isaac Herzog on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich, Germany. The two sides insisted that the meetings were informal. But it reportedly revolved around security matters and the Zionist Union’s defense strategy, Israeli media reported. On Friday, Biden announced he’ll miss Netanyahu’s speech to Congress due to a pre-scheduled overseas trip, yet unnamed. Both Kerry and President Barack Obama said last month...

AS THE Obama administration pushes to complete a nuclear accord with Iran, numerous members of Congress, former secretaries of state and officials of allied governments are expressing concern about the contours of the emerging deal. Though we have long supported negotiations with Iran as well as the interim agreement the United States and its allies struck with Tehran, we share several of those concerns and believe they deserve more debate now — before negotiators present the world with a fait accompli. The problems raised by authorities ranging from Henry Kissinger, the country’s most senior former secretary of state, to Sen....

Sixty-one percent of Israeli Jews believe there is a high probability that US President Barack Obama will approve the signing of a nuclear agreement with Iran, even if Israel expressly states that the deal endangers the Jewish state’s security, according to the newly released Peace Index poll by the Israel Democracy Institute. The US is willing to make concessions in the nuclear talks with Iran in exchange for Iran using its influence to ensure stability in Middle East hotspots such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, Army Radio reported Tuesday. Regarding March’s Knesset elections, 58 percent of Israeli Jewish respondents in...

The Obama administration reportedly is fuming over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to address Congress in March regarding the Iranian threat, with one unnamed official telling an Israeli newspaper he will pay “a price” for the snub. House Speaker John Boehner invited Netanyahu -- and the Israeli leader accepted – without any involvement from the White House. In public, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest politely describes this as a “departure” from protocol. He also says the president will not meet with Netanyahu when he visits in early March, but has attributed that decision only to a desire not...

But President Obama will not be meeting with Netanyahu when he visits. “As a matter of long-standing practice and principle, we do not see heads of state or candidates in close proximity to their elections, so as to avoid the appearance of influencing a democratic election in a foreign country,” White House National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said in a statement today. “Accordingly, the president will not be meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu because of the proximity to the Israeli election, which is just two weeks after his planned address to the U.S. Congress.”

President Obama hailed late Saudi King Abdullah, who died at age 90 after a battle with pneumonia, as leading the kingdom “through its emergence as a critical force within the global economy and a leader among Arab and Islamic nations.” “He took bold steps in advancing the Arab Peace Initiative, an endeavor that will outlive him as an enduring contribution to the search for peace in the region,” Obama said of the Saudi plan that would recognize Israel in exchange for concessions including pulling back to pre-1967 borders. “At home, King Abdullah’s vision was dedicated to the education of his...

While Iran’s march toward a nuclear bomb has provoked a major clash between the White House and Congress, Iran’s march toward conventional domination of the Arab world has been largely overlooked. In Washington, that is. The Arabs have noticed. And the pro-American ones, the Gulf Arabs in particular, are deeply worried. This week, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels seized control of the Yemeni government, heretofore pro-American. In September, they overran Sanaa, the capital. On Tuesday, they seized the presidential palace. On Thursday, they forced the president to resign. The Houthis have local religious grievances, being Shiites in a majority Sunni land. But...

House Speaker John Boehner has issued an invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to a joint session of Congress on February 11th concerning Iran. Boehner issued the invitation in response to President Obama's threat to veto further sanctions against Iran.

Sunday's Der Spiegel had a massive expose on the continuing efforts of Bashar al-Assad to build a nuclear weapons plant, which included evidence that Iran is constructing such a plant for Syria in Qusayr, less than two kilometers from Syria's border with Lebanon. The issue came up in the State Department's Monday daily briefing. Disturbingly, spokeswoman Marie Harf said that the United States did not plan to raise the issue in the Iranian nuclear talks, claiming that those talks only deal with Iran's nuclear capabilities and not with Syria's. According to findings of Western intelligence agencies, however, the situation...

WASHINGTON - Biden, speaking at a forum on the Middle East at the Brookings Institution think tank, rejected calls for more sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program because "this is not the time to risk a breakdown when we still have a chance for a breakthrough." Biden said the sanctions imposed by the United States and allies were working by slowing Iran's economy, as well as its nuclear program. "It's frozen the program, it's given us a shot for a peaceful solution," he said. "I tell you, I think it's a less than even shot but it's a shot,...