Update: Netanyahu - Obama Meeting

We're starting to get a feel for what will be discussed at the upcoming meeting between President Obama and PM Netanyahu, and it's fairly predictable:

Obama Cautions Against "A Premature Attack" On Iran, Rejects Red Lines

If this is true (see below) - then Netanyahu will have his answers.

In a New York Times article published Thursday, former Israel Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin wrote:
“Asking Israel's leaders to abide by America's timetable, and hence allowing Israel's window of opportunity to be closed, is to make Washington a de facto proxy for Israel's security - a tremendous leap of faith for Israelis faced with a looming Iranian bomb.”

The two views represent the crux of the fundamental disagreement between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu three days before they meet at the White House on how and when to stop Iran going nuclear.

The Israeli view was laid out clearly by Yadlin when he wrote, “That moment of decision will occur when Iran is on the verge of shielding its nuclear facilities from a successful attack – what Israel’s leaders have called the zone of immunity.”

This ominous development is ignored in the US president’s interview.

When he declared, “The Israeli people understand that the United States isn’t bluffing when it says ‘all options are on the table,’” Obama no doubt recalled the disagreement with Netanyahu going back six months when the Israeli prime minister asked him privately on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to lay down a US-Israeli consensus on red lines for Iran’s nuclear program, beyond which the US President would be committed to strike Iran.
In return, Israel would promise to refrain from attacking Iran and follow America’s lead on the issue.

The US president turned him down.

The US president turned him down.

Israel has not relinquished its position, which Yadlin put very clearly: “What is needed is an ironclad American assurance that if Israel refrains from acting in its own window of opportunity - and all other options have failed to halt Tehran's nuclear quest - Washington will act to prevent a nuclear Iran while it is still within its power to do so.”

The absence of that American assurance is keeping Israel from a commitment to refrain from attacking Iran notwithstanding all the verbal ammunition thrown at its government from Washington.

We'll still have to wait until next week to see what happens between Netanyahu and Obama, but the early signs aren't very promising. If the early rhetoric continues without progress, then indeed Israel will have to deal with Iran alone; which is consistent with biblical prophecy as we approach the expected wars described in Ezekiel 38-39 and Isaiah 17 approaching.