TIMES OF ISRAEL
by Raphael Ahren
March 4, 2015

The speech had everything you’d expect: A solid case against letting Israel’s “genocidal enemies” anywhere near nuclear weapons, a cut and dried rejection of Western rapprochement with Iran, tributes to the unbreakable bond between Israel and the United States, Purim references, Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust, and even Moses. But major surprises there were few. In his controversial address to a joint meeting of Congress Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not reveal any hitherto unknown details from the nuclear negotiations with Iran, as some had feared. He also did not present the world with a concrete and pragmatic policy proposal outlining how the Islamic Republic’s march toward nuclearization could be stopped, as some had hoped.

US President Barack Obama said “there was nothing new” in the speech. True, that Netanyahu would vehemently oppose the currently discussed deal was as clear as his Iran-North Korea comparison. It is noteworthy, nevertheless, that Netanyahu did not repeat his much-stated position that Iran may not retain any uranium enrichment, a maximalist demand US National Security Advisor Susan Rice Monday called “neither realistic nor achievable.” READ MORE