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Israel Puts Iran Issue Ahead of Palestinians

[Washington Post] Howard Schneider and Glenn Kessler - The new Israeli government will not move ahead on the core issues of peace talks with the Palestinians until it sees progress in U.S. efforts to stop Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon and limit Tehran's rising influence in the region, according to top government officials familiar with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's developing policy on the issue. "It's a crucial condition if we want to move forward," said Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon. "If we want to have a real political process with the Palestinians, then you can't have the Iranians undermining and sabotaging." Israeli analysts and Netanyahu's advisers say that while his focus on Iran may limit the likelihood of any near-term progress toward Palestinian statehood, it opens the door for a broader and more profound step forward if Obama and the Arab states agree with his view of Iran. Netanyahu's approach "completely recalibrates expectations and understandings about where we really are," said Dan Diker, a senior foreign policy analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a think tank that is close to the Netanyahu administration. "We can only address the region in the context of an ascendant Iran that is close to nuclear weapons and is destabilizing nearly every country in the Middle East."
2009-04-22 06:00:00
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