Netanyahu to Obama: Pressure on Iran should not be lessened

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday, raising concerns about Iran’s nuclear program just days after Obama spoke to Iranian President Ha ssan Rouhani on the phone, the first such interaction between U.S. and Iranian heads of state in 30 years.

Netanyahu said Iran’s “conciliatory words” have not been matched by “real action.”

“It is Israel’s firm belief that if Iran continues to advance its nuclear program during negotiations, the sanctions [against Iran] should be strengthened,” he said.

Obama stressed that the U.S. is taking “no options off the table, including military,” but needs “to test diplomacy.” Netanyahu said that if diplomacy is to work, “pressures” such as sanctions and the threat of military action “must be kept in place” and “should not be lessened until there is verifiable success.”

Iranian network: CNN mistranslated Rouhani Holocaust remarks

(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) An Iranian news agency questioned the translation of a CNN interview with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in which he was asked to speak about the Holocaust.

“I have said before that I am not a historian. And that when it comes to speaking of the dimensions of the Holocaust it is the historians that should reflect on it. But in general I can tell you that any crime that happens in history against humanity including the crime the Nazis created towards the Jews is reprehensible and condemnable,” Rouhani said, according to the CNN translation.

But the semi-official Iranian news agency Fars says CNN mistranslated the interview, stating that Rouhani actually spoke in a different tone and did not even use the word “Holocaust.”

“I have said before that I am not a historian and historians should specify, state and explain the aspects of historical events,” the Iranian outlet claimed Rouhani said. “But generally we fully condemn any kind of crime committed against humanity throughout the history, including the crime committed by the Nazis both against the Jews and non-Jews.”

An independent translation by the Wall Street Journal said “Fars, not CNN, got the Farsi right.”

Golden Dawn neo-Nazi party to be dismantled, Greek  PM says

 Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras vowed to eliminate the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party just two days after his government began a widespread crackdown against the party. The Greek government also announced plans to present a bill targeting hate speech to parliament.

The Greek government had already arrested the Golden Dawn party head and other parliament members in the wake of the recent murder of popular singer Pavlos Fyssas by a member of the party. reception in his honor on Monday.

U.N. inspectors: Nov. 1 deadline for ending Syria chemical weapons manufacturing

United Nations inspectors who will oversee the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons say that their first priority will be ending Syria’s capacity to manufacture weapons by Nov. 1.

On Sept. 27, the U.N. Security Council ordered the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to destroy Syria’s arsenal by mid-2014 by any means possible. But some experts are skeptical that the weapons can be destroyed in accordance with that timetable. Adding to the complications, the Syrian government is responsible for giving U.N. inspectors access to the chemical sites, some of which may be near rebel-held areas. 

Suspected Iranian spy arrested in Israel

Israel’s Shin Bet security agency revealed Sunday that a Belgian citizen of Iranian descent was arrested at Ben-Gurion International Airport earlier this month on suspicion that he had served as an intelligence agent for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The Shin Bet said the suspect, Ali Mansouri, was allegedly recruited by the Guards Corps’s special ops unit, a body responsible for multiple terror attacks against Israeli targets around the world, Israel Hayom reported.

Mansouri had visited Israel three times and tried to cultivate relationships with Tel Aviv business owners. In 2012, he began establishing business infrastructure in Israel that could provide cover for secret intelligence work. When he was arrested, the Israeli authorities recovered many photographs of various Israeli sites, including the American Embassy in Tel Aviv.

Revoke prisoner release, 28 MKs tell Netanyahu

Twenty-eight members of Israeli Knesset, among them seven deputy ministers, last week called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel the planned release of terrorists to the Palestinian Authority (PA) as part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations process. Jerusalem signed a deal with the PA in July, securing the release of 104 Palestinians who were charged with acts of terrorism and sentenced to jail in Israel. Israel has so far released 26 terrorists.