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Lior Mizrahi / Getty Images
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the press in Jerusalem, Israel, Oct. 9, 2012.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Tuesday for an early election, seeking to strengthen his political position after signaling that any military action against Iran could be months away.
Opinion polls suggest Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party will coast to victory in the national vote, which he said in a televised announcement could be held within three months.
Netanyahu, in office since 2009, cited bickering among his partners in the governing coalition over cuts in the budget as a main reason for opting for a new ballot. Israel was not due to hold a parliamentary election until October 2013.
"At this time, in the face of the turmoil around us, security and economic, it is my obligation as prime minister to put the national interest above all. Therefore I have decided for the benefit of Israel to hold elections now and as quickly as possible," he said.
The ballot, which Israeli commentators predicted would be held in January or February seemed likely to focus on two main issues: Iran's nuclear program and the Israeli economy.
Netanyahu didn't set a date but said it would be "preferable to have as short a campaign as possible," the BBC reported. The prime minister enjoys high approval ratings.
Israel's Netanyahu: Draw 'clear red line' to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons
An election campaign would not necessarily have an impact on any Israeli timetable for possible military action against Iran's nuclear facilities.
In an attempt to convey what he sees as a threat to Israel's existence, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used a cartoon to illustrate how close he says Iran is to developing a nuclear weapon. In a speech at the United Nations General Assembly he asked the world to help stop them. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.
In a speech to the United Nations last month Netanyahu signaled any strike against Iran could wait until next spring or summer, when he said Tehran might be on the brink of building a nuclear bomb.
Israeli PM tries to strike more neutral pose in U.S. election
Israel, widely believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear power, says Iran is enriching uranium with the aim of producing an atomic weapon. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Netanyahu will remain as prime minister in a transition government when parliament dissolves itself in the coming days. He presides over a five-party coalition government that controls 66 seats in the 120-member parliament.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Just in case his erratic decision turns out badly he wants to be able to rebound with a full term; go nuts yahoo. All the press this dbag is getting is unjustified; just like all the war drum beaters in our right wing conmen. Iran is looking like Iraq 2003 or 2.0; NO.
Netanyahhu would have my vote. Strong adversaries who wish to kill every Jew in Israel call for a strong leader. There is no better man for the job right now.
If I were Israeli, I would probably like Netanyahu...as an American, I like him less. His insistence that our country publicly make a clear military threat against Iran was, and is, unnecessary. Immediately after loudly declaring to the world that Israel was entitled to make its own strategic decisions, Bibi came out and tried to tell the USA what OUR policy should be. Some might see it as a brilliant move...I DON'T. His actions were meant to be provocative and meddlesome...now that I think about it, maybe I wouldn't like him so much if I were Israeli either. Ehud Barak might be a better choice at this particular moment in history.
Stupid comments--
Very lowly educated fools.
Excuse me, what I meant was Mitt Romney is our morman prophet and together with fresh-new-term Netanyahu we will rid the world of terrorists by becoming terrorists ourselves. I think we can triple arms sales again in '12; the sky is the limit.
Lets see how things work in the "Only democracy in the Middle east"...
These isrealis think they are democratic when everthing is honky dorry within jew population...
I hope isreali gay party wins the elections..
Abdallah - I think the most amusing thing you just said (with corrected spelling) (not a knock on you, i used to spell Israel wrong all the time, and i'm Jewish) was "I hope the Israeli gay party wins the elections."
The fact that being gay in Israel is not a crime punishable by death, or even a crime at all... and that assuming how the votes go... could actually be elected... really paints a nice picture, as opposed to how gay people are treated by other countries in the region.
Democratic indeed.
My take is that gays are non violent people, so , I think there is much greater chance of isreal being peaceful with gays in power vs benji running the show...
Unless of course benji turns gay, his attitude may change... Thats probably not gonna happen...
Gays are prone to violence, to love, to jealousy, to hate, to compassion - to the whole spectrum of emotions - just like any other human being...their sexual preference doesn't somehow magically shield them from the same feelings we all have.
It's amazing how breathtakingly stupid these supposedly "tolerant" individuals actually are
Yes, that's the kind of wisdom it takes to support Iran.
Stupid comments--
Very lowly educated fools.
You are right merchant; eli is full of stupid , uneducated comments
While Abdallah's comments are just brilliant, especially when you use them in support of Iran the country that once got bashed big time by a famous bisexual Alexander the Great.
The jewish people should have enough good sense to vote nittyahoo and his cronies out of the office. No doubt nittyahoo will try to rig the election so as to stay in power.
Talk to your friends on Hamas and in Iranian government. They are pretty much making Bibi's campaign.
Thanks to the rockets from Gaza and threats from Iran, Bibi pretty much has it in the bag. Not that I am happy about it, but the fact that you hate it makes it much easier for me to accept it.
Whenever israel was in crisis or to divert attention, attacks by Hamas or reisistant fighters were conveniently staged by israel to suit its evil agenda.
No doubt recent "attacks" were staged by nittyahoo to drum up support for his election campaign.
Sure, all the Hamas attacks are really staged, Bibi just convinced Hamas that they did it with Zionist hypnosis. He also makes Ahmadinejad threaten Israel with Jedi mind-control.
israel will attack iran, it is just a matter of time, except for jordan they are surrounded by country's, that are now are becoming radical muslim fundamentalists, it is unknown what ISRAEL nuclear arsenal is, but it is estimated at over 100, nuclear weapons of low and medium yield.
Henrich, I think we should send Jimmy Carter and Goldstone over to insure fair elections.
The details of an Israeli attack on Iran are revealed in Jonathan Bloomfield’s award-winning book, “Palestine.”
Netanyahu is just one more reason not to vote for Romney.
Well said.
Can you imagine, we need to put up with this nate a-hole 4 more years?
I think Obama will handle nate just fine; As he did before, tell nate you do not have time for jerks and ungrateful freeloaders.. There may be some benefit attending other "world matters" that matter...
Not only will you put up with Bibi for as long as he is elected, but Obama will support Israel when it matters, and you will put up with that too.
Obama is a closet islamic socialist. Be careful of this man he will hang the ISraelis out to dry.
What I would like Obam do is put isrealis in their place, treat them how they treat us..
If we support a country because we have so many jew americans, via money, military aid etc etc, in return we demand loyalty.,. By that I do not mean isreal jump when we say go get it boy!
US has stsrategic interest in middle east and needs to maintain good relations with Arab countries, who have been loyal to US many years..
But with isreal acting like a-hole brats, getting into conflict after conflict with neighbors, insisting on enslaving palestinians in their own homeland, it is becoming much more difficult for US to get along with muslim countries..
I say , we stop supporting isreali f*cks who are beliggerant and not doing what we want them to do.
We say 67 borders, it means 67 borders, we do not listen to benji a-hole bitching about it... We lead the UN for peacekeepers in palestine, establishing 67 borders... If isreal still keeps bitching about everything, we enforce no flyu zone and drop bunch of carpet bombs just like the ones we did in afghanistan..
It will be very economical in isreal; We can cover the whole country in two days...
See, Brits made a huge mistake by giving palestinian land to jews.. But its done... Its not feasible just to take all jews and put them in Kamchatka peninsula..
So, US will fix this injustice to palestinians one way or the other..
If Israel is ever forced to choose between cash aid and safety, and if US ever cuts aid, all that will change is that Israel wont have to hold back in dealing with your buddies. A lot more Arab blood will be spilled.
As for your dream of US bombing Israel, just dream on, that's all you can do.
Let me ask all of you this question and answer honestly.
If you were to go to the middle east, where if you went; you as an individual would feel safer in an all Islamic Country or Israel ?
Kinda Like........... where would you feel safer in Columbia or The USA - Am I Right ?
I'd feel safer with an armed and armored hummer for a daily driver but I don't think that I could afford it long; I'm also not going to kill people so I can continue to afford to drive it.
Hey boo boo. I would ask you which country's citizens have we been supporting for decades, to the tune of far more than 100 billion dollars? I would hazard a guess, that they would be inclined to make Americans feel a little safer. However, if America would stop supporting the parasites, they would change their tune in a hurry, but that would mean America would be saving money and stop gaining enemies.
Should the people of those Arab countries feel gratitude for the way we armed Israel, in order for Israel to bully them, kill their citizens and destroy their infrastructure, as they did in Lebanon?
Netanyahu will not attack Iran. Israel hasn't got the nuts. They couldn't even handle 5000 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon, when they tried to face them on the ground. The IDF is weak from years of fighting women and children in Gaza. They no longer have the will to take the casualties, whic would be sure to come with any unilateral attack on Iran.
That is why they want Romney to become president. They know he will do the dirty work, so American gentiles can absorb the casualties and the cost, just as we did in Iraq, under George Bush. Israeli casualties equaled 0. Cost to Israel =0 Cost to America--greater than 3.5 trillion dollars, 4500 dead and 10s of thousands maimed for life, with lost limbs, eyesight and disfigurements.
Do the Jews of Israel care? Hell no. Do the Zionists of America care? Hell no. They want America to get involved in Iran, despite the fact that all our intelligence agencies have said Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program.
Israel is one of the most popular tourist spots not only for Americans, but for all countries who are not at war with Israel, actual support is not a prerequisite.
Whatever.
When will this end? These Islamofacistnazis keeping everyone walking on eggs and worried about offending a terrorist nation. I know the USA shouldn't negotiate with these terrorist' but I would like to ask them exactly what their problem is with the USA. I bet they don't have an answer because it would be everything we do but I still would like to ask. This islamic leg humping has got to stop.
just a thought----- Iran has no plan to attack Isreal, however Israel is the lead warmongerer and loudly expresses a desire to attack Iran. so lets say that Iran with it's allies decides it is better to do a preemptive strike on Iraeli nuke facilities, it would looked upon as an agressor by the U.S. GOVT. and savagely attacked by the U.S. PRESS for action by us. However if the ISRAELI'S were to attack IRAN it would be taken here as a defensive measure,although it is only the THOUGHT that IRAN was TRYING to make a bomb. the UNITED STATES OF ISRAEL WINS AGAIN!
Unfortunately and sadly its true..
Isrealis always play the victim card (The holocaust and all) to assign some logic to what they do...
But, things are changing; Americans now know what isreal is all about... Ungrateful, freeloaders, brats, source of unrest in middle east etc etc...
On 26 October 2005, IRIB News, an English-language subsidiary of the state-controlled Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), filed a story on Ahmadinejad's speech to the "World Without Zionism" conference in Tehran, entitled: Ahmadinejad: Israel must be wiped off the map
what planet are you from? because you cant be from this one unless you live on some weird island entire to itself
john,
mahmoud is not saying that he will boomb the crap out of isreal; he was merely expressing his displeasure with isreali zionist f*cks, who have been brats in the middle east..
He was not diplomatic about it, but the idea is shared by many... Isreal cannot act like loose cannons, stupid f*cks in the middle east , get into conflicts and ask US help to hide under our skirt when things get tough...
So, ahmednejad may not be as diplomatic as many others, but, I think he is more stable than the isreali dikheads running the government right now.
ahmednejad: Honest, accurate but not diplomatic man..
Benji: liar, cheat, backstabber, freeloader, ungrateful, but, very diplomatic...
Take your pick..
Did Iran say that they wanted to wipe Israel off the map? Did Iran say that they wanted to push the Jews into the sea? Does Iran support Syria in it's killing of its own citizens? Did Iran hold American hostages for 444 days? Do I need to go on? The whole world sees fit to apply sanctions against Iran but you seem to think Israel is the trouble maker? Israel wants to aggressively defend themselves from rouge Arab states namely Iran and you think that Israel is the bully here? Whats the anti-semite deal anyway? Israel has shown a great deal of restraint considering the threats that have been made towards Israel and the power that Israel could unleash upon an aggressor. Let me ask you this. If Iran had the weaponry that Israel has do you think they would have used it by now? Lets not kid each other, Israel has nuclear weapons and high tech defense systems with no better pilots anywhere in the middle east. If Iran had those capabilities and Israel didn't, Iran would have attacked Israel and the USA by now and we all know that is the truth.
Robert - Iran did not say they want to wipe Israel off the map. That is a Zionist lie, which has been clarified many times. Apparently you cannot read or comprehend.
Didn't America stage an overthrow of the democratically elected leader of Iran and then refuse to turn over the puppet Shah, who we had installed, to the leaders of the Iranian revolution? That is the reason they took over our embassy. All embassy staff were eventually returned home to America.
Perhaps if we were not meddling in the affairs of Iran, in order to please our oil companies, we wouldn't have these problems. We never did before the meddling. Iran has not started a war with another nation for almost 200 years. Quite a record, don't you think? What constitutes the Iran of today, was the Iran of 200 years ago. No wars of conquest. None. America has attacked many, many nations and had many governments overthrown, through the use of our CIA, in that same time period. We have also propped up dictators and tyrants. Worse of all, we prop up and support the terrorist State of Israel, the country that was complicit in 9/11.
No, they did not say "wipe of the map", they said "erase from the pages of time" and called Israel "rotten corpse", "cancer that must be removed", "noise that will be eliminated" and the latest comment that "our dream of their elimination will come true".
I wonder how many times they have to repeat themselves before their own followers finally get the point.
They said the regime would disappear. Quite a difference, wouldn't you say? The Zionist regime is indeed a cancer and they are a burden on America, which we do not need.
Stop all aid to Israel.
A world without Zionism, would be a dream come true for most of the civilized world, not just Iran. That does not mean they want Israel to be wiped out. It means the Zionist regime is a cancer, which must be voted out of Israel's leadership and out of America's government. There are far too many Zionists in our government and in our news media, making and influencing government policies.
"Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do
that . .. I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American
pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans
know it."
Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001, to
Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio.
Well, the "civilized" islamists and antisemites can keep dreaming. You missed your last chance when you lost WWII.
The United States and Iran find themselves in the Middle of an Israeli-Palestinian issue. Notice that I did not say Jewish-Islamic issue. The United States has to protect our citizens in Israel who account for a considerable portion of the Israeli population. Aside from that, it has fallen on The United States, as the only super power, to defend the decisions made by the Europeans and their American counterparts, after World War II, in the creation of a homeland for the diaspora Jews in the wake of the genocide perpetrated upon them by Nazi Germany.
At the time of the Balfour Declaration, years earlier, when the Zionist movement was gathering strength, Palestine only had about 25,000 Palestinian Jews. Iran had 600,000 Jews and still has one of the the largest Jewish population in the Middle East, outside of Israel itself. The Israel vs Middle East issue is simply the conflict that has arisen because The Middle East was not consulted nor agreed to the occupation of its territory by Europe and The United States. The Allied forces did this in order to Provide a homeland for the Diaspora Jews in the area that was once Palestine, in the creation of a secular, not religious society, Known as Israel.The issue has never been antisemitism.
The newly formed Country of Israel from the beginning was in a state of war with The Middle East. Israel with superior training and armaments from us and Europe has easily defeated its enemies in both 1947 and 1967. We have even given Israel a nuclear arsenal. It is the most powerful military force in the Middle East!!!The reason another war has not happened is that Europe and the United States subsidizes Israel with billions of dollars each year , that are spent in Israel and on some of their former enemies like Egypt and Libya to prevent another war.
When we hear saber rattling from Iran, their issue is strictly for the Europeans and Americans to go back to their countries and leave Palestine alone to determine their own future. That anti-colonialism rant will die out eventually. Just as our own Indian Nations have had to accept the overwhelming power of Europeans in The United States, The Palestinians will opt for a two state solution before losing everything to the expansionists in Israel. Once The Palestinians accept the two state solution, Israel after taking as much territory as it can, will accept the hard task of living in a peaceful world. Notice that No mention has been made about Judaism or Islam, nor even Christianity. When it comes to the national interest of the super-rich, religion is tertiary.
As for Iran, The Middle Eastern non-align nations there, and many others through-out the world,see Iran as the only hope for containing Europe and The United States in our quest for control of the Middle Eastern Oil production. Thus far we have failed to control Iran twice since 1953. We have topple their government once. We have armed and waged war once through Iraq, and our Puppet, Saddam Hussein. But we have toppled Iraq and the Iraqi oil field are under our control. The ranting in Iran against Israel is an old card to prevent Israel, The United States and Europe from invading again. If Iran and the rest of the Middle East had the power, there would never have been any occupation of Palestine to begin with.
We as Americans, need to understand the dynamics of global economics, as the United States is The only bastion for uncontrolled capitalism in the world today. The resent depression is just the tip of the Iceberg. Practically all other industrialized nations have citizens that are more aware and therefor more able to curb their governments encroachment on their own rights and rights of the rest of the world population.
Netanyahu is an ultra conservative, which means that he has more in common with General Custer than Sitting Bull. Will he convince the Israeli population that Iran is about to create another holocaust? Perhaps not,! But he wants to capitalize on the momentum he has created to become elected once again and lead Israel to expand to the point of committing genocide on the Palestinian people before yielding to a two state solution. If his buddy, Mitt Romney, is elected, we may see the Israel of David, triumph again. This time the genocide will be perpetrated on the Palestinian natives, instead of the people of Canaan.
There is the problem; US does not have obligation to protect its "ungrateful" citizens whose loyalties are not in line with US.
If thats the case, howcome US did not act when poor US girl was "BULLDOZED" by isreali F*cks?
Howcome US did not prosecute isrealis who murdered one american citizen in the ship that was carrying supplies to GAZA,Paelstine?
You do not know WTF you are talking about..
US has no reason to intervene when a foolish girl dies in an accident that she herself had caused, not do they have any reason to intervene when a few thugs try to pound armed soldiers upside the head with lead pipes and suffer the consequences.
Nice to see the Aryan nation in full bloom. Ralph H back to his usual filth and lies, and using codewords like getting rid of the Zionists (Jews) in the middle east and USA. Abdallah Abdallah, you piece of crap. I hope you are some kind of blood letting, bed wetting, scared little Arab like you want to make yourself seem. Hiding behind a computer spewing the only thing you seem to know, your hatred for Jews. I would love to meet each and everyone of you to settle this bull@!$%# once and for all, if you can find time to take off your mothers' dress. You all belong with the brave Taliban who drive by and shoot innocent children expressing their hate for terrorism. That 14 year old girl in Pakistan showed more balls then any of you c---su----g maggots. For once just go to hell with all the other great minds of hate
Stev,
F*ck you.. You got some nerve to defend ungrateful scumbags who are used to live off of US.
If you really must say something, thats got to be how ashamed you are to be an isreali or jew or both..
I will meet you in vegas in front of Treasure island, I will be wearing a pink carnation, and you will be dressed like a whore, which you almost do not need to change your clothes...richardsucker!!
Go pray to God for forgiveness for being such a miseable f*cking jerk.
Stevala - Try to point out any lies you think I have made. Please be specific. I bet you can't, but I am waiting to rebut with facts.
Ralph, you are asking someone to point out a piece of trash in a trash can.