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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected US Secretary of State John Kerry's proposal to visit Israel following his election win in March and told him instead to come only after the new government was formed. According to a report on Israel's Channel 2, immediately after Israel's general election on March 17, Kerry proposed that he would visit the Jewish state in order to advance various regional issues.  The Prime Minister's Office did not confirm the report on Sunday evening.  Relations between Netanyahu and the administration of US President Barack Obama have been tense over the last few months. On Election Day Netanyahu...

US Secretary of State John Kerry has given his first interview to Israeli media since spearheading the controversial framework deal with Iran over its nuclear program. Speaking to Channel 10, Kerry sought to bypass Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's stern opposition to the deal by appealing directly to the Israeli people. Kerry sought repeatedly to reassure Israelis that despite the criticism from Netanyahu and many others, any deal with Iran would be watertight. "I say this again - we will not sign a deal that does not close off Iran's pathways to a bomb and that doesn't give us the confidence...

The Wall Street Journal, citing a State Department official, reports that any evacuation point designated in a country where an Al Qaeda affiliate is active and an unstable security picture puts Americans and any U.S. military assets involved at risk. Instead, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf has pointed to an online system where Americans stranded in Yemen can register to receive updates on opportunities to leave the country. The department has also talked to other countries about Americans joining their rescue missions, she said. The decision of saving Americans puts U.S. authorities in a tight spot. They must choose between...

US Secretary of State John Kerry urged the Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen to participate in UN-brokered negotiations to end violence ravaging the country. “This has to be a two-way street,” Kerry told reporters in Canada after taking part in a summit of Arctic nations. “We need the Houthi and we need those that can influence them to make sure that they are prepared to try to move… to the negotiating table,” Kerry said. Yemen’s former President Ali Abdullah Saleh had called on Friday for all Yemenis to enter a political dialogue to end the conflict. …

Largest cash infusion to terror regime in recent memory, experts say The State Department on Monday would not rule out giving Iran up to $50 billion as a so-called “signing bonus” for agreeing to a nuclear deal later this year, according to comments made to journalists following reports that the Obama administration had formulated a plan to release tens of billions of frozen Iranian funds. Experts have said this multi-billion dollar “signing bonus” option, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, could be the largest cash infusion to a terror-backing regime in recent memory. A cash release of...

The United States plans to continue its efforts to pursue a nuclear deal with Iran, but will not allow Tehran to run amok and do as it pleases, said Secretary of State John Kerry. If needed, the US will respond forcefully to Iranian efforts to destabilize the Middle East, Kerry said in an interview. "Iran needs to recognize that the United States is not going to stand by while the region is destabilized or while people engage in overt warfare across lines - international boundaries - in other countries,” Kerry told PBS in an interview Wednesday. The US is “well...

Wednesday on PBS “NewsHour,” Secretary of State John Kerry articulated the administration’s new position on Sen. Bob Corker’s (R-TN) bill demanding Congress get a vote on the merits of President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, in light of prominent Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) supporting the bill this week. Making it clear the bill can not “interfere” with the president’s deal, Kerry said “if it’s changed and adjusted and reflects the respect for the Constitution and the president’s prerogatives,” then Congress can vote.

Iran’s foreign minister says Tehran would be able to return to its current level of nuclear activities if the West withdraws from a pact that is to be finalized in June. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says Iran has the power to take “corresponding action” and “will be able to return” its nuclear program to the same level if the other side fails to honor the agreement. …

Obama spiked the football in the Rose garden this week when he claimed that Iran and other world powers had agreed on an “historic” framework toward a final nuclear deal. He was doing his best channeling of Neville Chamberlain when he declared “I am convinced that if this framework leads to a final comprehensive deal, it will make our country, our allies and our world safer.” Of course, the key word in Barack’s victory speech is “if;” as in “…if Tehran proves that it is adhering to the agreement.” Yet nothing is in writing! Maybe The One has gone back...

The great pretense, the false suspense, the grand charade, the whole production number is about over. After months, after years of pretending that negotiations to keep Tehran's mullahs from getting their own nuclear weapon, the cover has been lifted and -- Ta-da! -- the grand finale begins with an all too familiar chorus: Peace in Our Time! Uncork the champaign, serve the caviar and get ready to applaud what should be a real hit. Call it "Munich: The Sequel." Back in 1938, the original production got a big reception from the waiting world, too, maybe bigger, because the audience could...

The logical flaw in the indictment of a looming “very bad” nuclear deal with Iran that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered before Congress this month was his claim that we could secure a “good deal” by calling Iran’s bluff and imposing tougher sanctions. The Iranian regime that Netanyahu described so vividly — violent, rapacious, devious and redolent with hatred for Israel and the United States — is bound to continue its quest for nuclear weapons by refusing any “good deal” or by cheating. This gives force to the Obama administration’s taunting rejoinder: What is Netanyahu’s alternative? War? But the...

US Secretary of State John Kerry bristled under comparisons of the recently announced deal with Iran to 1938's agreement between Britain's Neville Chamberlain and Germany's Adolf Hitler over the Sudetenland. Though Chamberlain proclaimed the agreement as assuring "peace for our time," World War II erupted only a year later. "There are just too many differences to make the comparison apt," Kerry claimed. "Hitler threatened to invade Czechoslovakia if his demands weren't met. Iran isn't threatening to invade anyone. Hitler had already invaded Austria. Iran hasn't invaded anyone. Iranian troops in Iraq are there by invitation to fight against ISIL." "There's...

'I don't read Farsi': State Department spokeswoman brushes off claims that Iran is misrepresenting terms of nuclear deal Within hours of a formal announcement that the United States, Iran and a group of five other world powers had brokered a deal keep Iran obtaining an atomic bomb in exchange for the relief of certain sanctions, cracks began to appear in the tediously negotiated preliminary agreement. The United States insisted in public statements and a fact sheet on the deal that sanctions on the country would be 'suspended' or 'phased' out over time after a final deal is inked while leaving...

A State Department official dismissed a plea Friday from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the Iran nuclear agreement include clear recognition of his nation's "right to exist," declaring negotiations are "only about the nuclear issue." State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf, in a terse response to a question about Netanyahu's concerns, told reporters, "This is an agreement that is only about the nuclear issue" -- a comment that indicates the Obama administration is not looking to enshrine Israel's security into a final agreement. Harf, for her part, suggested the talks are complicated enough already. "This is an agreement that doesn't...

The emerging reports indicate the U.S. team, led by Secretary of State John Kerry, gradually backed down over the course of the talks as Iran's delegation dug in. The Wall Street Journal, citing current and former U.S. representatives at the discussions, claimed the White House had initially hoped to persuade Iran to dismantle much of the country's nuclear infrastructure when talks started in late 2013, only to be told categorically that Iran would not do so.

Friday on MSNBC’s “The Rundown with José Díaz-Balart,” Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) argued since the Iranians are already  “backing away from” the four pages put out yesterday by the White House, believing they would agree to a complex final deal with thousands of page in June would be difficult.Sherman said, “The key thing from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey is that they’re not saying that this will inspire them to develop their own nuclear program. One of the main benefits we want from this deal is to avoid the nuclear proliferation race in the Middle East that would start if people thought Iran...

"Everything about the so-called deal with Iran, including the reputations of the men who negotiated it, is a lie. It’s likely to be a deadly lie for millions of people who will die on account of it. The world should mark well everyone responsible for it."

[snip] Kerry is a man who has lived most of his adult life in the public eye. It’s been a career of almosts and near misses—and fugitive moments of glory. He’s been grasping for the brass ring his entire life, it seems, determined to be a man of import and impact, to make his mark. But somehow it’s always eluded John Kerry. More doors are closed now than open, and Kerry has less than two years left in his job. [snip] America’s secretary of state—the “tireless, and I mean tireless," John Kerry, as President Obama put it in his Rose...

Says White House misleading Congress, American people with fact sheet LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Just hours after the announcement of what the United States characterized as a historic agreement with Iran over its nuclear program, the country’s leading negotiator lashed out at the Obama administration for lying about the details of a tentative framework. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif accused the Obama administration of misleading the American people and Congress in a fact sheet it released following the culmination of negotiations with the Islamic Republic. Zarif bragged in an earlier press conference with reporters that the United States had tentatively agreed...

The move to allow Iran to keep centrifuges at Fordow, a controversial onetime military site, has elicited concern that Tehran could ramp up its nuclear work with ease. Zarif said that once a final agreement is made, “all U.S. nuclear related secondary sanctions will be terminated,” he said. “This, I think, would be a major step forward.” Zarif also revealed that Iran will be allowed to sell “enriched uranium” in the international market place and will be “hopefully making some money” from it. European Union High Representative Federica Mogherini said in a statement that the sides had “taken a decisive...