Netanyahu Slams International 'Hypocrisy' Over Iran Arms Ship

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Israel Matzav: Obama: 'Stop killing Iranian nuke scientists'

The Obama administration has decided that Israel is behind the liquidation of several Iranian nuclear scientists, and has demanded that the liquidations be stopped.

Recently, as I sought to update a book I co-wrote about the history of Israel's intelligence agencies, sources close to them revealed that they felt pressure from the Obama Administration - more than a hint - to stop carrying out assassinations inside Iran.

Although Israel has never acknowledged it, the country's famed espionage agency - the Mossad - ran an assassination campaign for several years aimed at Iran's top nuclear scientists.

The purpose was to slow the progress made by Iran, which Israel feels certain is aimed at developing nuclear weapons; and to deter trained and educated Iranians from joining their country's nuclear program.

At least five Iranian scientists were murdered, most of them by bombs planted on their cars as they drove to work in the morning. Remarkably, the Israeli assassins were never caught - obviously having long-established safe houses inside Iran - although several Iranians who may have helped the Mossad were arrested and executed.

In addition to strong signals from the Obama Administration that the U.S. did not want Israel to continue the assassinations, Mossad officials concluded that the campaign had gotten too dangerous. They did not want their best combatants - Israel's term for its most talented and experienced spies - captured and hanged.

Unbelievable.... Obama wants Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.

The Courage of Cory Booker By: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

President Obama has dropped the hammer on sixteen Democratic senators who have joined a bold Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, and Mark Kirk, Republican of Illinois, in co-sponsoring new legislation that will increase sanctions against Iran should they fail to follow through on their pledges to halt uranium enrichment. The Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013 has also attracted forty-three Republican co-sponsors bringing the total to 59. If they get to 67, they will have a veto-proof majority, something the White House is doing everything to prevent. One of those brave sixteen is my close friend Senator Cory Booker, who has had a unique and special relationship with the Jewish community since I met him as an undergraduate at Oxford University in 1992. As is well known, Cory served as president of my Oxford L’Chaim society, where he arguably became the first African-American-Christian head of a major Jewish organization in history. Cory and I then began studying Torah on a regular basis and he has probably been invited to lecture more American Jewish communal venues than any other political figure in the United States. What Cory has seen, as have his other intrepid senate colleagues, is that Iran is an immense danger to the world in general, and Israel and the United States in particular. Iran is a menace. This is a regime that exhibits brutality in every field. I just finished reading Days of God, by James Buchan, which is a phenomenal history of modern Iran, from Reza Shaw’s time, who ruled Iran from 1925-1941, to Muhammad Reza, who ruled as Shah until 1979, through Khomeini’s Iranian revolution of that same year to the regime currently run by the murderous and barbarous Ayatollah Ali Khameini. This is a regime that recruited boys from the age of twelve to fight against Saddam’s armies in the ten year Iran-Iraq war. This regime even had ruthless Iraqi soldiers crying as they mowed down Iranian boys attacking them across battlefields, and Iran used children in the Iran-Iraq war to clear minefields, as detailed in Ami Pedahzur’s Root Causes of Suicide Terrorism. It is the same regime that stones women to death for accusations of infidelity. It hangs homosexuals from cranes in the capital of Tehran. It is the regime that our state department lists as one of the foremost global exporters of terrorism. It funds Hezbollah, which blew up 241 American peacekeeping marines, soldiers, and sailors in 1983 Beirut. It is the regime which mowed down their own people in the streets of Tehran in the Green Revolution of 2009, when innocent Iranians protested a stolen election. And it is the regime that publicly shot 26-year-old protester Nada Agha-Soltan in the heart. Today Iran, like a heat-seeking missile, continues to seek out warm Jewish blood wherever it may be spilled, like the 2012 brutal murder of six innocent Israelis who planned simply to lie on a beach on a Bulgarian vacation but instead came home in a box. That Obama is placing all the pressure on 16 Senators from his own party rather than squarely on the Iranians where it belongs is, sadly, true to form. Whatever debatable successes the President has had in domestic policies, what is indisputable is his catastrophic foreign policy. Iraq today has turned into one giant suicide explosion and large parts of the country, like Fallujah, where so many marines died, are slowly going over to Al Qaida. Egypt is a mess and utterly distrusts the United States. John Kerry comes to Israel every week to make what he calls an urgent peace between Israel and the Palestinians yet utterly ignores the 130,000 dead in the Syrian Civil War, just slightly to the north. Russia has gained the upper hand over the United States in global diplomacy and Vladimir Putin bestrides the world like a colossus. And with all that, President Obama is insistent on pressuring brave Democratic Senators of his own party, who want to keep Iran in check, so that he can hand over to the murderous mullahs $10 billion so that they can prop up their regime without demanding that they dismantle their nuclear framework. A great deal of the President’s pressure is falling on our newly elected Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. Last month I and Birthright-co-founder Michael Steinhardt, who is also a former chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, took out full page ads in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal promoting the message of my hero and friend, Nobel Peace Laureate Elie Wiesel, to whom I introduced Senator Booker, beseeching President Obama, as well as the United States Senate, to insist that Iran’s nuclear facilities be dismantled. Inspections, Wiesel said, are not enough as we discovered with North Korean who agreed to a similar deal in 1994 only to lie and detonate a bomb in 2006. Contrasting Wiesel’s call in the Jewish community was Peter Beinart, a member of Cory’s Rhodes Scholar class and someone I hosted at Shabbat meals at Oxford. While Beinart and I remain friendly, that did not stop him from savaging Cory (do I detect a hint of envy?) for his close relationship with the Jewish community in general, and me in particular, in a column where Beinart was forced to change the libelous subhead after he claimed it was written by an underling without his approval. Unlike Wiesel who is known as one of the most respected moral voices in the word, Beinart, of course, is best-known for calling for a boycott on Israeli products like Soda Stream because they are manufactured beyond the green line, the arbitrary armistice line of 1949 where the Arab armies, threatening Israel’s annihilation, were halted. Beinart’s column and forum, Open Zion, has now been canceled by the Daily Beast, presumably due to lack of interest, and he has been reduced to writing his screeds in Haaretz, where he has become yet another tiresome critic of Israel. Beinart has accepted my invitation to debate me on Iran and we hope to shortly stage the event. Beinart and his kind scapegoat Israel’s settlers as principal obstacles to Middle East peace while Khomeini himself scapegoated the United Sates for the same. Khomeini’s followers coined the now familiar Iranian chant of America as the great Satan. Today, Iran is developing intercontinental missiles with a range that could reach targets in the continental United States. But even if that were not the case, imagine how courageous it must be, to be a Democratic senator like Cory Booker, to oppose, as one of your first acts as a newly elected Senator, the leader of your own party, the President of the United States, on insisting that Iran now acquire weapons of mass destruction. In 1955 President John F. Kenney published his Pulitzer-Prize winning book, Profiles in Courage, which detailed gutsy actions on the part of United States Senator who followed their conscience on matters of principle even if it lost them votes or ran afoul of their own party. Since then the American people have significantly soured on Congress, which today has an approval rating of just nine percent. But what Cory and his 15 other Democratic colleagues have shown is that courage in the United States Senate is alive and well.

Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/america-rabbi-shmuley-boteach/the-courage-of-cory-booker/2014/01/21/

Elie Wiesel Says ‘Iran Must Not Be Allowed to Remain Nuclear’ in Full Page Ads in NYT, WSJ

rofessor Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Laureate, said today,”Iran must not be allowed to remain nuclear,” in full page ads taken out in the New York Times. The ad will run in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

The ads were paid for by Jewish philanthropist Birthright Israel co-founder Michael Steinhardt and were produced by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s This World: The Values Network.

In the ad, Prof. Wiesel asks “should the civilized nations of the world trust a regime whose supreme leader said yet again last month that Israel is ‘doomed to annihilation,’ and referred to my fellow Jewish Zionists as ‘rabid dogs?’”

He tells readers that we must “appeal to President Obama and Congress to demand, as a condition of continued talks, the total dismantling of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and the regime’s public and complete repudiation of all genocidal intent against Israel. And I appeal to the leaders of the United States Senate to go forward with their vote to strengthen sanctions against Iran until these conditions have been met.”

Of the decision to co-sponsor the ad, Rabbi Boteach said, “Elie Wiesel is the greatest Jewish personality alive and my personal hero. He is a man of incomparable humanity and he is calling the world’s attention to the unmitigated catastrophe of a nuclear-armed Iran. I salute his courage in speaking out against the human rights outrages of the Mullahs of Iran who slaughter their own people with impunity and who have repeatedly threatened Israel with extinction.”

On Steinhardt’s involvement, Boteach also said, “Nobody loves the Jewish people like Michael Steinhardt, a name synonymous with bursting Jewish pride and incomparable generosity. I thank Michael for facilitating Elie Wiesel’s warning to the world about Iran.”

The full text of the ad is posted below:

Iran Must Not Be Allowed to Remain Nuclear

If there is one lesson I hope the world has learned from the past it is that regimes rooted in brutality must never be trusted. And the words and actions of the leadership of Iran leave no doubt as to their intentions.

Should the civilized nations of the world trust a regime whose supreme leader said yet again last month that Israel is “doomed to annihilation,” and referred to my fellow Jewish Zionists as “rabid dogs?”

Should we who believe in human rights, trust a regime which in the 21st century stones women and hangs homosexuals?

Should we who believe in freedom trust a regime which murdered its own citizens in the streets of Tehran when the people protested a stolen election in the Green Revolution of Summer, 2009?

Should we who believe in the United States trust a regime whose parliament last month erupted in “Death to America” chants as they commemorated the 34th anniversary of the storming of our Embassy in Tehran?

Should we who believe in life trust a regime whom our own State Department lists as one of the world’s foremost sponsors of terrorism?

America, too, defines itself by its words and actions. America adopted me, as it did so many others, and gave me a home after my people were exterminated in the camps of Europe. And from the time of the founding fathers America has always stood up to tyrants. Our nation is morally compromised when it contemplates allowing a country calling for the destruction of the State of Israel to remain within reach of nuclear weapons.

Sanctions have come at a terrible economic cost for the people of Iran. But, unfortunately, sanctions are what have brought the Iranian regime to the negotiating table.

I appeal to President Obama and Congress to demand, as a condition of continued talks, the total dismantling of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and the regime’s public and complete repudiation of all genocidal intent against Israel. And I appeal to the leaders of the United States Senate to go forward with their vote to strengthen sanctions against Iran until these conditions have been met.

I once wrote that history has taught us to trust the threats of our enemies more than the promises of our friends. Our enemies are making serious threats. It is time to take them seriously. It is time for our friends to keep their promises.

Elie Wiesel

Nobel Peace Laureate

This Ad was produced by This World: The Values Network (LOGO)

Executive Director, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

And Sponsored by Michael Steinhardt, Board of Governors, This World: The Values Network; co-founder Birthright Israel

THE ALGEMEINER JOURNAL

Professor Alan Dershowitz tells the Institute for National Security Studies that Israel should ignore international law and just attack Iran.

Esteemed advocate Alan Dershowitz says that Israel should ignore international law when deciding how to deal with Iran.

International law is “a construct in the mind of a bunch of left wing academics,” he said, in a lecture at the Institute of National Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv last week “There is no basis for international law in any reality. It's not based on legislation. Much of it is not based on treaty. It is the ultimate exercise in elitist nondemocracy.”

Iran does not believe that its nuclear weapons program is in danger of being attacked, he estimated. It wrongly believes, he said, that Israel will not attack it unless the US gives it a green light.

The interim deal made with Iran in Geneva was “a mistake,” Dershowitz said. Iran “got what it wanted...China is already there in Tehran seeking business. Other countries are there seeking business. They see the end of the sanctions regime. The words may not be be that but the music is certainly in that direction.”

Iran has given up nothing in the deal, he explained. They are still developing rockets that can carry nuclear weapons. There has been no slowing down in the work of enrichment centrifuges, no ceasing of the Arakheavy water plant's activity, and the Iranians see the deal as a victory.

The big difference between the US and Israel in this matter stems from the fact that the US is thousands of miles away from the Middle East, whereas for Israel, the Iranian threat is a much more serious one, said Dershowitz.

All options are on the table

Can Israel attack Iran?

This post is not about whether Israel is politically capable of attacking Iran. It's about whether Israel is militarily capable of attacking Iran. There's a May 2012 article on Time Magazine's website by Karl Vick and Aaron Klein which claims that we're not militarily capable of attacking Iran (Hat Tip: Shy Guy via Tomer Devorah). This isn't a question of whether we have planes or missiles. It's a question of how we'd defend ourselves from a counter-attack without the use of American-supplied x-band radar.

The discreet complex atop Mt. Keren is a U.S. military installation, and the 100 U.S. service members who staff it are the only foreign troops stationed in Israel. Most are guards; a few are support. The technicians are recognizable by the protective suits they wear to shield them from the extraordinary amounts of radiation generated by the no less extraordinary apparatus the base is built around.

The small, rectangular-shaped portable radar peeking around a concrete blast wall is so advanced it can see over the horizon, and so sensitive it can spot a softball tossed in the air from 2,900 miles away. (Tehran is a mere 1,000 miles away to the northeast.) On Mt. Keren, the X-band radar is indeed pointed northeast, toward Iran, where it could detect a Shahab-3 missile launched toward Israel just seconds into its flight — and six to seven minutes earlier than Israel would know from its own radar, called Green Pine.

The extra time means a great deal. Six additional minutes increases by at least 60% the time Israeli officials would have to sound sirens that will send civilians scrambling into bomb shelters.

It also substantially increases the chances of launching interceptors to knock down the incoming missile before it reaches Israel, hiking the likelihood its wreckage or warhead falls in, say, the wastes of the Jordanian desert rather than Israel's heavily populated coastal plain. And should the interceptor miss, the extra time might allow for the launch of a second one.

All this is possible, however, only if U.S. officials choose to share the information, because only Americans have eyes on the radar. And if it's difficult to imagine a U.S. commander-in-chief choosing to withhold an early warning that could save civilian lives of a close ally, both sides recognize that if the Iranian missiles were launched in retaliation for an Israeli air strike, the onus might be on the Israeli government that set such events in motion. In any event, military officials and outside analysts say that uncertainty can only inhibit any Israeli impulse to "go it alone."

I wrote many, many posts about the x-band radar when it was first installed. X-band was a parting gift from George W. Bush, and was installed in early 2009, shortly before Bush left office. The Americans did insist on controlling it, but they insisted on that in every other installation too (you may recall that in Turkey there was a dispute because the Turks object to information from their x-band radar being shared with Israel). But in mid-2009, the Americans did allow Israel to station at least one person in the control room. Here's what I wrote about it then, and I think it still applies.

Note that the Americans are running the show and that there's still only one Israeli being allowed in. I argued herethat we are better off with the Americans running the show without us than we would be without the radar at all. I still believe that. If there's really an attack, God forbid, the Americans are unlikely to refuse to turn the radar on. They know that Iran would like nothing more than to have some 'high quality' American casualties.

On the other hand, with Hopenchange in power, one never knows for sure....

In 2011, x-band radar installations in Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia werelinked.  

All this is not to say that the US will definitely turn on the radar if Israel attacks Iran. We already know that the Obama administration refused to turn on Japan's radar during a North Korean missile test. And we already know that the US sharply cut back joint exercises with Israel and denied it anti-missile systems that could be used against Iran. 

Bottom line: Israel may not benefit from the x-band radar in defending against counter-strikes from an attack on Iran. But to jump from there to say that not having the x-band radar would prevent Israel from attacking Iran is still a big jump. A military strike on Iran is considered a last resort anyway. The fact that we might not have an extra layer of defense that would be nice to have won't stop it.

US Military Chief: We Would Back Israel in Event of Iran Strike; General Martin Dempsey notes ongoing security pact with Israel, hails Jewish state as 'example of what could be' in the Middle East.

Top US military leader and chairof the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, said on Monday at a regional summit of international business executives in Washington that the US would still back Israel in the event of a strike on Iran. 

According to the International Business Times, Dempsey noted that the US still has a 'deep obligation' to Israel in the event of a military conflict with Iran. Dempsey declined to give details, but emphasized that the two countries still have a special alliance during this period of heightened tensions in the region. "That is why we are in constant contact and collaboration with them," he confirmed. 

CNN notes that Dempsey also credited Israel with being "an example of what could be" in the Middle East. "If we had one of my Israeli counterparts sitting here, they would tell you that most of the Arabs living in Israel have a better life than the Arabs living in the rest of the region and that is true," he said.

Dempsey's remarks follow a public falling-out between Israel and the US, over different opinions regarding a nuclear Iran. The US and Israel are also butting heads after US Secretary of State John Kerry's visit this month to broker more peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority turned into a diplomatic disaster, with Kerry calling Israeli building in Judea and Samaria "illegitimate" and making threats of a "third intifada" if talks fail. 

Relations between Israel and the US have only downturned in the past week, as Kerry and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reportedly were unable to agree over an appropriate date for the US official to visit Israel again and attempt to resume the floundering peace negotiations.

Amid the diplomatic crisis, Netanyahu has been looking to other countries for support in preventing the deal. French President Francois Hollande remarked during his visit this week that France is working vigilantly to prevent a deal with Iran from being accepted by the international community; and on Wednesday, the PM is expected to visitRussia to appeal for support from Moscow. 

Talks between Iran and the so-called P5+1 nations are expected toresume in Geneva on Thursday, November 20. 

Obama's Iranian Red Line

Obama has repeatedly threatened Iran over its developing nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad doesn't care. His red line is a dotted line.

Netanyahu and the end of days By Victor Davis Hanson

So far, Iranian President Hasan Rouhani’s peace ruse is still bearing some fruit. President Obama was eager to talk with him at the United Nations — only to be reportedly rebuffed, until Mr. Obama managed to phone him for the first conservation between heads of state of the two countries since the Iranian storming of the U.S. Embassy in 1979.

Mr. Rouhani has certainly wowed Western elites with his mellifluous voice, quiet demeanor and denials of wanting a bomb. The media, who ignore the circumstances of Mr. Rouhani’s three-decade trajectory to power, gush that he is suddenly a “moderate” and “Western-educated.”

The implication is that Mr. Rouhani is not quite one of those hard-line Shiite apocalyptic theocrats like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who in the past ranted about the eventual end to the Zionist entity.

Americans are sick and tired of losing blood and treasure in the Middle East. We understandably are desperate for almost any sign of Iranian outreach. Our pundits assure us that either Iran does not need and thus does not want a bomb, or that Iran at least could be contained if it got one.

No such giddy reception was given to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In comparison with Mr. Rouhani, he seemed grating to his U.N. audience in New York. A crabby Mr. Netanyahu is now seen as the party pooper, who barks in his raspy voice that Mr. Rouhani is only buying time from the West until Iran can test a nuclear bomb and that the Iranian leader is a duplicitous “wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Why does the unpleasant Mr. Netanyahu sound to us so unyielding, so dismissive of Mr. Rouhani’s efforts to dialogue, so ready to start an unnecessary war? How can the democracy that wants Iran not to have the bomb sound more trigger-happy than the theocracy intent on getting it?

In theory, it could be possible that Mr. Rouhani is a genuine pragmatist, eager to open up Iran’s nuclear facilities for inspection to avoid a pre-emptory attack and continuing crippling sanctions.

However, if the world’s only superpower can afford to take that slim chance, Mr. Netanyahu really cannot. Nearly half the world’s remaining Jews live in tiny Israel — a fact emphasized by the Iranian theocrats, who have in the past purportedly characterized it as a “black stain” upon the world.

After World War II, the survivors of the Holocaust envisioned Israel as the last-chance refuge for endangered Jews. Iranian extremists have turned that idea upside down, when, for example, former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani purportedly quipped that “the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything.”

Mr. Netanyahu accepts that history’s lessons are not nice. The world, ancient and modern, is quite capable of snoozing as thousands perish, whether in Rwanda by edged weapons, Saddam Hussein’s gassing of the Kurds, or, most recently, 100,000 in Syria.

Centuries before nuclear weapons, entire peoples have sometimes perished in war without much of a trace — or much afterthought. After the Third Punic War, Carthage — its physical space, people and language — was obliterated by Rome. The vast Aztec empire ceased to exist within two years of encountering Hernan Cortes. Byzantine, Vandal and Prussian are now mere adjectives. Most have no idea that they refer to defeated peoples and states that vanished.

The pessimistic Mr. Netanyahu also remembers that there was mostly spineless outrage at Hitler’s systematic harassment of Jews before the outbreak of World War II — and impotence in the face of their extermination during the war. Within a decade of the end of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel throughout the Middle East had become almost a religion.

In the modern age of thermonuclear weapons, the idea of eliminating an entire people has never been more achievable. Collective morality, though, does not often follow the fast track of technological change. Any modern claim of a superior global ethos, anchored in the United Nations, that might prevent such annihilation is no more valid now than it was in 1941. Again, ask the Tutsis of Rwanda.

The disastrous idea of a pre-emptory war to disarm Iran seems to us apocalyptic. But then, we are a nation of 314 million, not 8 million; the winner of World War II, not nearly wiped out by it; surrounded by two wide oceans, not 300 million hostile neighbors; and out of Iranian missile range, not well within it. Reverse those equations, and Mr. Obama might sound as neurotic as Mr. Netanyahu would utopian.

We can be wrong about Mr. Rouhani without lethal consequences. Mr. Netanyahu reviews history and concludes that he has no such margin of error. That fact alone allows us to sound high-minded and idealistic — and Israel suspicious and cranky.

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

ISRAEL MATZAV: Hmmm: IAF drills midair refueling on long-range mission

In the midst of tensions over Iran, Israel is making it quite clear that when it says all options are on the table, it means military options.

Let's go to the videotape.



Kind of reminds you of spaceship docking back in the '60's and '70's, doesn't it? Hmmm.

“When one mentions that ‘all options are on the table,’ it’s clear that military operations are also being talked about,” the IDF Spokesman’s Office said on Thursday.

“The air force, which is the IDF’s long arm, is responsible for realizing this option if necessary, and to that end, squadrons are practicing and strengthening the full range of their abilities, including long-range flights,” the IDF added.

The preparations are aimed at giving the IAF the ability to carry out both pinpoint and broad, long-range missions.

The IDF added that such training has been occurring on a regular basis in recent years, and tests all aspects of long-distance sorties: planning in the air force’s Operations Department, the flight itself and the abilities of the IAF’s command and control center to manage the missions.

An IAF source said that the challenges in this type of mission include dealing with unfamiliar weather conditions and terrain, as well as coping with various potential threats along the way to the targets.

Pilots who took part in the exercise said the experience was prolonged and demanded powers of concentration for several hours, as well as special physical preparations that included eating the right diet and getting enough rest.

 So glad I'm not a pilot....

Israelis built makeshift shelters on balconies across the country in preparation for Iranian nuclear attack. Experts said the “God Pods” would provide little protection

Video & text: PM Netanyahu’s 2013 speech to the UN General Assembly Prime minister says the world must not be fooled by the new face of the Iranian regime

The United Nations, New York City. Tuesday, October 1, 2013

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Thank you, Mr. President.

I feel deeply honored and privileged to stand here before you today representing the citizens of the state of Israel. We are an ancient people. We date back nearly 4,000 years to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We have journeyed through time. We’ve overcome the greatest of adversities.

And we re-established our sovereign state in our ancestral homeland, the land of Israel.

Now, the Jewish people’s odyssey through time has taught us two things: Never give up hope, always remain vigilant. Hope charts the future. Vigilance protects it.

Today our hope for the future is challenged by a nuclear-armed Iran that seeks our destruction. But I want you to know, that wasn’t always the case. Some 2,500 years ago the great Persian king Cyrus ended the Babylonian exile of the Jewish people. He issued a famous edict in which he proclaimed the right of the Jews to return to the land of Israel and rebuild the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. That’s a Persian decree. And thus began an historic friendship between the Jews and the Persians that lasted until modern times.

But in 1979 a radical regime in Tehran tried to stamp out that friendship. As it was busy crushing the Iranian people’s hope for democracy, it always led wild chants of “death of the Jews.”

Now, since that time, presidents of Iran have come and gone. Some presidents were considered moderates, other hard-liners. But they’ve all served that same unforgiving creed, that same unforgiving regime, that creed that is espoused and enforced by the real power in Iran, the dictator known as the supreme leader, first Ayatollah Khomeini and now Ayatollah Khamenei.

President Rouhani, like the presidents who came before him, is a loyal servant of the regime. He was one of only six candidates the regime permitted to run for office. See, nearly 700 other candidates were rejected.

So what made him acceptable? Well, Rouhani headed Iran’s Supreme National Security Council from 1989 through 2003. During that time Iran’s henchmen gunned down opposition leaders in a Berlin restaurant. They murdered 85 people at the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. They killed 19 American soldiers by blowing up the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia.

Are we to believe that Rouhani, the national security adviser of Iran at the time, knew nothing about these attacks?

Of course he did, just as 30 years ago Iran’s security chiefs knew about the bombings in Beirut that killed 241 American Marines and 58 French paratroopers.

Rouhani was also Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator between 2003 and 2005. He masterminded the — the strategy which enabled Iran to advance its nuclear weapons program behind a smoke screen of diplomatic engagement and very soothing rhetoric.

Now I know: Rouhani doesn’t sound like Ahmadinejad. But when it comes to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the only difference between them is this: Ahmadinejad was a wolf in wolf’s clothing. Rouhani is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a wolf who thinks he can pull the eyes — the wool over the eyes of the international community.

Well, like everyone else, I wish we could believe Rouhani’s words, but we must focus on Iran’s actions. And it’s the brazen contrast, this extraordinary contradiction, between Rouhani’s words and Iran’s actions that is so startling. Rouhani stood at this very podium last week and praised Iranian democracy — Iranian democracies. But the regime that he represents executes political dissidents by the hundreds and jails them by the thousands.

Rouhani spoke of, quote, “the human tragedy in Syria.” Yet, Iran directly participates in Assad’s murder and massacre of tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children in Syria. And that regime is propping up a Syrian regime that just used chemical weapons against its own people.

Rouhani condemned the, quote, “violent scourge of terrorism.” Yet, in the last three years alone, Iran has ordered, planned or perpetrated terrorist attacks in 25 cities in five continents.

Rouhani denounces, quote, “attempts to change the regional balance through proxies.” Yet, Iran is actively destabilizing Lebanon, Yemen, Bahrain and many other Middle Eastern countries.

Rouhani promises, quote, “constructive engagement with other countries.” Yet, two years ago, Iranian agents tried to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador in Washington, D.C. And just three weeks ago, an Iranian agent was arrested trying to collect information for possible attacks against the American embassy in Tel Aviv. Some constructive engagement.

I wish I could be moved by Rouhani’s invitation to join his wave — a world against violence and extremism. Yet, the only waves Iran has generated in the last 30 years are waves of violence and terrorism that it has unleashed in the region and across the world.

Ladies and gentlemen, I wish I could believe Rouhani, but I don’t because facts are stubborn things, and the facts are that Iran’s savage record flatly contradicts Rouhani’s soothing rhetoric.

Last Friday Rouhani assured us that in pursuit of its nuclear program, Iran — this is a quote — Iran has never chosen deceit and secrecy, never chosen deceit and secrecy. Well, in 2002 Iran was caught red-handed secretly building an underground centrifuge facility in Natanz. And then in 2009 Iran was again caught red-handed secretly building a huge underground nuclear facility for uranium enrichment in a mountain near Qom.

Rouhani tells us not to worry. He assures us that all of this is not intended for nuclear weapons. Any of you believe that? If you believe that, here’s a few questions you might want to ask. Why would a country that claims to only want peaceful nuclear energy, why would such a country build hidden underground enrichment facilities?

Why would a country with vast natural energy reserves invest billions in developing nuclear energy? Why would a country intent on merely civilian nuclear programs continue to defy multiple Security Council resolutions and incur the tremendous cost of crippling sanctions on its economy?

And why would a country with a peaceful nuclear program develop intercontinental ballistic missiles, whose sole purpose is to deliver nuclear warheads? You don’t build ICBMs to carry TNT thousands of miles away; you build them for one purpose, to carry nuclear warheads. And Iran is building now ICBMs that the United States says could reach this city in three or four years.

Why would they do all this? The answer is simple. Iran is not building a peaceful nuclear program; Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Last year alone, Iran enriched three tons of uranium to 3 1/2 percent, doubled it stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium and added thousands of new centrifuges, including advanced centrifuges. It also continued work on the heavy water reactor in Iraq; that’s in order to have another route to the bomb, a plutonium path. And since Rouhani’s election — and I stress this — this vast and feverish effort has continued unabated.

Ladies and gentlemen, underground nuclear facilities, heavy water reactors, advanced centrifuges, ICMBs. See, it’s not that it’s hard to find evidence that Iran has a nuclear program, a nuclear weapons program; it’s hard to find evidence that Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapons program.

Last year when I spoke here at the U.N. I drew a red line. Now, Iran has been very careful not to cross that line but Iran is positioning itself to race across that line in the future at a time of its choosing. Iran wants to be in a position to rush forward to build nuclear bombs before the international community can detect it and much less prevent it.

Yet Iran faces one big problem, and that problem can be summed up in one word: sanctions. I have argued for many years, including on this podium, that the only way to peacefully prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons is to combine tough sanctions with a credible military threat. And that policy today is bearing fruit. Thanks to the efforts of many countries, many represented here, and under the leadership of the United States, tough sanctions have taken a big bite off the Iranian economy.

Oil revenues have fallen. The currency has plummeted. Banks are hard-pressed to transfer money. So as a result, the regime is under intense pressure from the Iranian people to get the sanctions relieved or removed.

That’s why Rouhani got elected in the first place. That’s why he launched his charm offensive. He definitely wants to get the sanctions lifted; I guarantee you that. But he doesn’t want to give up Iranians’ nuclear — Iran’s nuclear weapons program in return.

Now here’s a strategy to achieve this. First, smile a lot. Smiling never hurts. Second, pay lip service to peace, democracy and tolerance. Third, offer meaningless concessions in exchange for lifting sanctions. And fourth, and the most important, ensure that Iran retains sufficient nuclear material and sufficient nuclear infrastructure to race to the bomb at a time it chooses to do so.

You know why Rouhani thinks he can get away with this? I mean, this is a ruse. It’s a ploy. Why does Rouhani think he — thinks he can get away with it? Because — because he’s gotten away with it before, because his strategy of talking a lot and doing little has worked for him in the past.

He even brags about this. Here’s what he said in his 2011 book about his time as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, and I quote: “While we were talking to the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in Isfahan.”

Now, for those of you who don’t know, the Isfahan facility is an indispensable part of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. That’s where uranium ore called yellowcake is converted into an enrichable form. Rouhani boasted, and I quote, “By creating a calm environment — a calm environment — we were able to complete the work in Isfahan.” He fooled the world once. Now he thinks he can fool it again.

You see, Rouhani thinks he can have his yellowcake and eat it too. And he has another reason to believe that he can get away with this. And that reason is called North Korea. Like Iran, North Korea also said its nuclear program was for peaceful purposes. Like Iran, North Korea also offered meaningless concessions and empty promises in return for sanctions relief.

In 2005 North Korea agreed to a deal that was celebrated the world over by many well-meaning people. Here’s what the New York Times editorial had to say about it, quote: “For years now, foreign policy insiders have pointed to North Korea as the ultimate nightmare, a closed, hostile and paranoid dictatorship with an aggressive nuclear weapons program. Very few could envision a successful outcome, and yet North Korea agreed in principle this week to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, return to the NPT, abide by the treaty’s safeguards and admit international inspectors.”

And finally, “diplomacy, it seems, does work after all. Ladies and gentlemen, a year later, North Korea exploded its first nuclear weapons device.”

Yet, as dangerous as a nuclear-armed North Korea is, it pales in comparison to the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran. A nuclear-armed Iran would have a choke hold on the world’s main energy supplies. It would trigger nuclear proliferation throughout the Middle East, turning the most unstable part of the planet into a nuclear tinderbox. And for the first time in history, it would make the specter of nuclear terrorism a clear and present danger. A nuclear-armed Iran in the Middle East wouldn’t be another North Korea. It would be another 50 North Koreas.

Now, I know that some in the international community think I’m exaggerating this threat. Sure, they know that Iran’s regime leads these chants, “death to America, death to Israel,” that it pledges to wipe Israel off the map. But they think that this wild rhetoric is just bluster for domestic consumption. Have these people learned nothing from history? The last century has taught us that when a radical regime with global ambitions gets awesome power, sooner or later its appetite for aggression knows no bounds.

That’s the central lesson of the 20th century. And we cannot forget it. The world may have forgotten this lesson. The Jewish people have not.

Iran’s fanaticism is not bluster. It’s real. The fanatic regime must never be allowed to arm itself with nuclear weapons. I know that the world is weary of war. We in Israel, we know all too well the cost of war. But history has taught us that to prevent war tomorrow, we must be firm today.

And this raises the question, can diplomacy stop this threat? Well, the only diplomatic solution that would work is one that fully dismantles Iran’s nuclear weapons program and prevents it from having one in the future.

President Obama rightly said that Iran’s conciliatory words must be matched by transparent, verifiable and meaningful action. And to be meaningful, a diplomatic solution would require Iran to do four things. First, cease all uranium enrichment. This is called for by several Security Council resolutions. Second, remove from Iran’s territory the stockpiles of enriched uranium. Third, dismantle the infrastructure for nuclear breakout capability, including the underground facility at Qom and the advanced centrifuges in Natanz.

And, four, stop all work at the heavy water reactor in Iraq aimed at the production of plutonium. These steps would put an end to Iran’s nuclear weapons program and eliminate its breakout capability.

There are those who would readily agreed to leave Iran with a residual capability to enrich uranium. I advise them to pay close attention to what Rouhani said in his speech to Iran’s supreme cultural revolution — Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council. This was published in 2005. I quote. This is what he said:

“A county that could enrich uranium to about 3.5 percent will also have the capability to enrich it to about 90 percent. Having fuel cycle capability virtually means that a country that possesses this capability is able to produce nuclear weapons.” Precisely. This is why Iran’s nuclear weapons program must be fully and verifiably dismantled. And this is why the pressure on Iran must continue.

So here is what the international community must do: First, keep up the sanctions. If Iran advances its nuclear weapons program during negotiations, strengthen the sanctions.

Second, don’t agree to a partial deal. A partial deal would lift international sanctions that have taken years to put in place in exchange for cosmetic concessions that will take only weeks for Iran to reverse.

Third, lift the sanctions only when Iran fully dismantles its nuclear weapons program. My friends, the international community has Iran on the ropes. If you want to knock out Iran’s nuclear weapons program peacefully, don’t let up the pressure. Keep it up.

We all want to give diplomacy with Iran a chance to succeed, but when it comes to Iran, the greater the pressure, the greater the chance. Three decades ago, President Ronald Reagan famously advised, “trust but verify.” When it comes to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, here’s my advice: Distrust, dismantle and verify.

Ladies and gentlemen, Israel will never acquiesce to nuclear arms in the hands of a rogue regime that repeatedly promises to wipe us off the map. Against such a threat, Israel will have no choice but to defend itself.

I want there to be no confusion on this point. Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone. Yet, in standing alone, Israel will know that we will be defending many, many others.

The dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran and the emergence of other threats in our region have led many of our Arab neighbors to recognize, finally recognize, that Israel is not their enemy. And this affords us the opportunity to overcome the historic animosities and build new relationships, new friendships, new hopes.

Israel welcomes engagement with the wider Arab world. We hope that our common interests and common challenges will help us forge a more peaceful future. And Israel’s — continues to seek an historic compromise with our Palestinian neighbors, one that ends our conflict once and for all. We want peace based on security and mutual recognition, in which a demilitarized Palestinian state recognizes the Jewish state of Israel. I remain committed to achieving an historic reconciliation and building a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Now, I have no illusions about how difficult this will be to achieve. Twenty years ago, the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians began. Six Israeli prime ministers, myself included, have not succeeded at achieving peace with the Palestinians. My predecessors were prepared to make painful concessions. So am I. But so far the Palestinian leaders haven’t been prepared to offer the painful concessions they must make in order to end the conflict.

For peace to be achieved, the Palestinians must finally recognize the Jewish state, and Israel’s security needs must be met.

I am prepared to make an historic compromise for genuine and enduring peace, but I will never compromise on the security of my people and of my country, the one and only Jewish state.

Ladies and gentlemen, one cold day in the late 19th century, my grandfather Nathan and his younger brother Judah were standing in a railway station in the heart of Europe. They were seen by a group of anti-Semitic hoodlums who ran towards them waving clubs, screaming “Death to the Jews.”

My grandfather shouted to his younger brother to flee and save himself, and he then stood alone against the raging mob to slow it down. They beat him senseless, they left him for dead, and before he passed out, covered in his own blood, he said to himself “What a disgrace, what a disgrace. The descendants of the Macabees lie in the mud powerless to defend themselves.”

He promised himself then that if he lived, he would take his family to the Jewish homeland and help build a future for the Jewish people. I stand here today as Israel’s prime minister because my grandfather kept that promise.

And so many other Israelis have a similar story, a parent or a grandparent who fled every conceivable oppression and came to Israel to start a new life in our ancient homeland. Together we’ve transformed a bludgeoned Jewish people, left for dead, into a vibrant, thriving nation, a defending itself with the courage of modern Maccabees, developing limitless possibilities for the future.

In our time the Biblical prophecies are being realized. As the prophet Amos said, they shall rebuild ruined cities and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine. They shall till gardens and eat their fruit. And I will plant them upon their soil never to be uprooted again.

(In Hebrew.)

Ladies and gentlemen, the people of Israel have come home never to be uprooted again. (Applause.)

Israel Has Launched Long-Shot Attacks Before Iran should take heed: In 1967, a pre-emptive strike on Egypt seemed impossible too.

Last week, Israel's outgoing ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, sought to settle a long-running debate regarding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's willingness to use military force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

"Certainly," Mr. Oren told daily newspaper Haaretz, "[Mr. Netanyahu] was the one who succeeded in drawing the world's attention to the threat. . . . But this success is not enough. The question he faces is similar to the question that [former Prime Minister Levi] Eshkol faced in May 1967."

As a close confidant to the prime minister and an award-winning historian of the Six Day War, Mr. Oren's comparison of Mr. Netanyahu to Eshkol is an ominous one that shouldn't be ignored.

Throughout its short history, the state of Israel has repeatedly shocked the world with bold military operations previously considered impossible, unthinkable, or borderline suicidal. On June 5, 1967, Eshkol sent most of Israel's air force into Egypt for a surprise preemptive attack, which left less than a dozen warplanes to defend the entire homeland. In the six days that followed, Israel defeated multiple threatening Arab armies, changing the face of the Middle East to this day.

Since the Six Day War, successive Israeli leaders have signed off on daring operations that have entered the annals of history: the 1976 hostage rescue in Entebbe, Uganda, the bombing of Saddam Hussein's Osiraq nuclear reactor in 1981 and the sneak attack to spoil Bashar al-Assad's own nuclear ambitions in 2007, to name a few. Premiers like Eshkol, Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Olmert embarked on each of these operations after becoming convinced that even their staunchest allies would not come to Israel's assistance.

In the face of such choices, forget the intelligence estimates and risk assessments. It ultimately takes a do-or-die, all-or-nothing mindset to make a decision which could either bring complete victory, or considerable military defeat and diplomatic isolation. In this context, Mr. Netanyahu not only views Iran as an existential threat comparable to the Nazi Holocaust—he also wishes to be remembered as the one who personally delivered its demise. On this point, sources close to the prime minister assert that he keeps in his desk drawer World War II-era letters from the U.S. War Department, which decline requests by the World Jewish Congress to bomb gas chambers at Auschwitz.

Amid turmoil now in Egypt, bedlam in Syria and musings of reform from Iran's newly elected President Hassan Rouhani, Mr. Netanyahu now fears that his campaign to stop Iran from going nuclear has been put on the international community's back burner. Israel's ambassador to the U.N., Ron Prosor, has repeatedly warned the Security Council that Iran's nuclear program is racing forward like an express train, passing diplomatic efforts that lag behind on the local route. Recent statements by the Netanyahu administration indicate they believe that Iran's nuclear train will arrive at its final destination by Nov. 2013 unless the international community intervenes.

Last month, Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Yuval Steinitz revealed Israel's assessment that Iran is close to stockpiling 200 kilograms of 20% enriched uranium and repeated that acquiring 250 kilograms would constitute Mr. Netanyahu's so-called "red line." His assessment is in line with th International Atomic Energy Agency's May 2013 report, which alleges that Iran possessed approximately 182 kilograms of 20% enriched uranium. With Iran's current ability to stockpile roughly 15 kilograms of 20% enriched uranium per month, Iran could trigger a preemptive Israeli strike in less than four months.

Meanwhile, while Mr. Netanyahu may have faced resistance in the past to launching a preventative strike, current conditions at home and across the region may be the most optimal he has ever had. Since Jan. 2013, Israel has provoked Iran and its allies (at least) three times with airstrikes against weapons convoys destined to Hezbollah in Syria, albeit without any reaction. The incidents, which served to reduce fears of a regional conflagration, have clearly resonated with Israel's various security chiefs, who have refrained from voicing any concerns about a strike on Iran, unlike their predecessors.

On July 14, Mr. Netanyahu commenced a widespread public and back-channel diplomacy campaign to re-rally Israel's allies to commit to both a convincing military threat and additional economic sanctions against Iran. His hope is that such a stance by the world community would deter Iran's decision makers from taking advantage of Mr. Rouhani's transition period to advance the nuclear program beyond the point of no return. Iranian officials, meanwhile, have stated that nuclear negotiations with the West should be put on hold until after Mr. Rouhani's cabinet is inaugurated in August. It is Jerusalem's fear that by the time Iran and its negotiating partners agree on a timetable and venue for new talks, it may be too late.

Many Israeli pundits, as well as Ambassador Oren himself, have compared Mr. Netanyahu's diplomatic push to Eshkol's last-ditch efforts to convince Washington of the existential threats posed by Arab nations in the weeks before June 5, 1967. As in 1967, this is a conflict that Israel has been anticipating for years, building previously unused military capability and practicing its strategy in preparation for another surprise feat, which may ultimately shock the world once again.

Having recently announced its willingness to negotiate with President-elect Rouhani, the Obama administration should heed this history lesson, lest the U.S. and the international community be caught off guard by another Israeli-induced regional earthquake.

Netanyahu on Iran Nukes: "I Won't Wait Until It's Too Late" - Bob Schieffer (CBS News)

SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, I want to thank both of you for being with us this morning on short notice. When we come back, we're going to talk about the big story overseas. And that is Iran and its continuing effort to build a nuclear weapon. We're going to talk to the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, that is only on CBS.

SCHIEFFER: And now to the big story overseas, the Middle East, where instability in Cairo, the still raging civil war in Syria, and the continued push for nuclear weapons in Iran has left Israel right in the middle. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joins us this morning from Jerusalem. Prime Minister, thank you so much. We'll get to Egypt and Syria in a minute. But I want to start with Iran this morning because you said last September that Iran would have the capability to build a nuclear weapon by this summer. It is summer, are they there yet?

NETANYAHU: I said if they continue to enrich at the same rate they will get there. They have taken heed of the red line that I sketched out at the U.N. They're still approaching it and they're approach after the Iranian elections. They're building ICBMs to reach American -- the American mainland within a few years. They're pursuing an alternate route of plutonium, that is enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb. One route, plutonium. Another route, ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic missiles to reach you. They don't need these missiles to reach us, they already have missiles that can reach us. They're doing that after the election. So they haven't yet reached it but they're getting closer to it. And they have to be stopped.

SCHIEFFER: There are reports in Israel, and our sources confirm, Prime Minister, that you want the United States to harden its position on Iran immediately and convey to the new government there that if Iran does not halt the nuclear program, its regime will not survive. NETANYAHU: I think the important thing is what the U.S. has said. They said the words won't influence us, what really counts is what the Iranians do. And what they have to do is stop their nuclear program. They have to stop all enrichment of nuclear material, to take out enriched uranium, to dismantle the illegal -- and shut down the illegal nuclear facility in Qom. These are the right demands and those should be back up with ratcheted sanctions. You should ratchet up the sanctions and make it clear to Iran that they won't get away with it. And if sanctions don't work then they have to know that you'll be prepared to take military action. That's the only thing that will get their attention.

SCHIEFFER: Well, do you believe that the United States, there are reports that you feel the United States has been too patient, a little too tolerant in dealing with the Iranians. Are you asking the United States to take a harder line?

NETANYAHU: I think we've spoken many times, President Obama and I, about the need to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. I know that is the U.S. policy. What is important is to convey to them, especially after the elections, that that policy will not change and that it will be backed up by increasingly forceful sanctions and military action. Now mind you, there is a new president in Iran, he believes -- he's criticizing his predecessor for being a wolf in wolf's clothing. His strategy is, be a wolf in sheep's clothing. Smile and build a bomb. He brags about the fact that he talked to the Europeans while completing a nuclear conversion plan in Isfahan. So I think they can't be allowed to get away with it. They're getting closer and closer to the bomb and they have to be told in no uncertain terms that that will not be allowed to happen. I think it's important to understand that we cannot allow it to happen. You know, our clocks are ticking in a different pace. We're closer than the United States. We're more vulnerable. And therefore we'll have to address this question of how to stop Iran, perhaps before the United States does. But as the prime minister of Israel, I'm determined to do whatever is necessary to defend my country, the one and only Jewish state, from a regime that threatens us with renewed annihilation.

SCHIEFFER: Well, the United States has said that we won't tolerate a nuclear Iran. What else can we say?

NETANYAHU: I think it's very important to make clear to them that you won't allow them to have this weapon and to demonstrate that by action. That is, you can also make clear that the nuclear option which is -- the military option which is on the table is truly on the table. The Iranians take note of that. Right now my sense is in the international community as a whole that because so many things are happening in the Middle East, things are happening, as you say, in Syria, in Egypt, with the Palestinians, there are many important issues that we have to deal with. And I have a sense that there's no sense of urgency. And yet on Iran -- and yet Iran is the most important, the most urgent matter of all. You should just talk to many of the leaders in this region and they will tell you that. Because all the problems that we have, however important, will be dwarfed by this messianic, apocalyptic, extreme regime that would have atomic bombs. It would make a terrible -- a catastrophic change for the world and for the United States, of course, for my country as well. So I think we have our eyes fixed on Iran. They have to know that we're serious. They have to know that there won't be an alternative route that they could reach the bomb if they think that, and they think we'll let them do it, if they think that Israel will let them do it, they're sorely mistaken.

SCHIEFFER: Well, what -- how close are they right now? Are they within a month? Are they within six months of having the capability? How close do you think they are?

NETANYAHU: They're closer. The most difficult thing in making a bomb is making the fissile nuclear material that is at the heart of the bomb. That is really the 90 percent of the effort, if I have to just put a thumb's rule on it. And they're getting closer. They have now about 190 kilos out of the 250 kilos of 20 percent enriched uranium. They had six, seven months -- eight months ago about 110 kilos. So they're edging up to the red line. They haven't closed -- they haven't crossed it yet. They're also building faster centrifuges that will enable them to jump the line, so to speak, at a much faster rate, that is within a few weeks, once they get to that critical mass of 250 kilos.

SCHIEFFER: When...

NETANYAHU: They're not there yet. They're getting closer. They should be -- they should understand that they are not going to be allowed to cross it.

SCHIEFFER: When will you make a decision on whether to attack Iran, because you have said, this will not stand?

NETANYAHU: Well, I can tell you I won't wait until it's too late.

SCHIEFFER: All right. I guess we'll leave it there. Let's talk a little bit about Egypt. You were worried when the Muslim Brotherhood came to power in Egypt and installed Morsi as president. He's now gone. Are you happy about that?

NETANYAHU: Well, look, we've been concerned with one thing. That is the maintenance of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. It's been -- it's been the cornerstone of peace between us and our neighbors, and it's also been the cornerstone of stability in the Middle East. And our concern, through changing administrations -- first Mubarak changed; Morsi came; now Morsi went, and we will see what develops in Egypt. Our concern throughout has been maintain the peace treaty. That was and remains my principal concern.

SCHIEFFER: The United States -- some here are saying we ought to cut off military aid to this interim government now until they have a democracy there. Do you think we should?

NETANYAHU: Look, that's an internal American decision. But, again, our concern is the peace treaty with Egypt. One of the foundations of that peace treaty was the U.S. aid given to Egypt.

SCHIEFFER: Had you talked to people in this interim government? Can you deal with them? Do you trust them?

NETANYAHU: We maintain contacts with -- formal contacts with the Egyptian government throughout the last two years, and including now. And the important thing from our point of view is not merely to maintain the peace but also stabilize the Sinai peninsula, which is Egyptian territory that is adjacent to our southern border, the Negev. It's been fraying there. There are a lot of terrorists. There are jihadists. There's Al Qaida, Hamas, you name it. They're all over the place. And our -- our concern is to prevent attacks against our territory and against our city, our southern city of Eilat. We've been doing that and will continue to do that. So our main concern in our contacts with the Egyptian government is to make sure that the peace is preserved and that terror is prevented. And this remains uppermost in my mind.

SCHIEFFER: Reports this morning that...

NETANYAHU: Well, not uppermost, Bob; uppermost in my mind -- uppermost in my mind -- uppermost in my mind is preventing the greatest terror of all. And that is that the radical Islamist regime in Iran gets the weapons of ultimate terror, nuclear weapons. That has to be prevented for the sake of peace, world peace, not only our survival but your vital interests. And I think the flow of history will judge us if we're able or unable to prevent this catastrophe.

SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you just one question on the Syrian civil war. Reports this morning that Israel carried out an attack in Syria this month that targeted advanced anti-ship cruise missiles sold to the Syrian government by Russia -- can you tell us anything about that?

NETANYAHU: Oh, God, every time something happens in the Middle East, Israel is accused. Most often, it's accused -- and I'm not in the habit of saying what we did or we didn't do. I'll tell you what my policy is. My policy is to prevent the transfer of dangerous weapons to Hezbollah and other terror groups, Hezbollah in Lebanon and other terror groups as well. And we stand by that policy.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, Mr. Prime Minister, thank you so much for joining us this morning. Wish you the best, and I'll be back in a minute with some thoughts on Washington and why it can't seem to get anything done.