On January 21st the BBC News website published an article titled “John Boehner invites Netanyahu to Congress on Iran” on both its Middle East and US & Canada pages.
Relating to an invitation from the Speaker of the US House of Representatives to the Israeli prime minister to address Congress, the BBC article states, inter alia, that:
“Six world powers want Iran to curb its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of sanctions.
An interim deal was struck in November 2013 but deadlines for a comprehensive deal have since been missed.
Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly warned a deal with Iran could threaten Israel’s security. The Israeli Prime Minister has not officially responded to the invitation.” [emphasis added]
That representation of the Israeli prime minister’s position is inaccurate and misleading. In fact, what PM Netanyahu has said on repeated occasions is that a bad deal with Iran on the part of the P5+1 would threaten Israel’s security. He has not expressed opposition to a deal in general as is implied in this report.
For example, in November 2013 the Jerusalem Post reported that Netanyahu said:
“If you do a bad deal, you may get to the point where your only option is a military option. So a bad deal actually can lead you to exactly the place you don’t want to be”
In May 2014 Ha’aretz reported that:
“The [Prime Minister’s] bureau’s statement, released in Hebrew, quotes emphasizing to the audience Israel’s stance that Iran must not be allowed to create an atomic weapon. The Islamic Republic currently has thousands of centrifuges and thousands of kilograms of enriched uranium, with which a bomb could be created.
“A bad deal will enable them to preserve this capability,” Netanyahu said, according to the Hebrew statement. “It would be better not to reach an agreement at all than to reach a bad agreement,” the bureau quoted him as saying.”
The Times of Israel reported in July 2014 that:
“Netanyahu warned that “a bad deal is actually worse than no deal,” defining that as one in which Iran would keep enriched nuclear material and the capability to further enrich uranium in return for monitoring by international inspectors.”
And as recently as November 2014, the BBC’s own Kevin Connolly conducted an interview with PM Netanyahu in which he said:
“No deal is better than a bad deal. The deal that Iran was pushing for was terrible. The deal would have left Iran with the ability to enrich uranium for an atom bomb while removing the sanctions. The right deal that is needed is to dismantle Iran’s capacity to make atomic bombs and only then dismantle the sanctions….”
How unfortunate it is that BBC journalists do not even follow their own colleague’s work sufficiently closely as to prevent them from publishing inaccuracies.
