JERUSALEM: Israel expressed satisfaction on Monday after the mass release of US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, saying it proved the Jewish state’s position on Iran was consistent — in public and in private.
The trove of documents released via the whistleblower website late on Sunday expose remarks made behind closed doors touching on everything from the Gaza blockade to Israeli views on the Hamas-Fatah divide, to US attempts to collect information on Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
"We come out looking very good," a senior government official told AFP on condition of anonymity, adding his assessment was only preliminary and came before the full set of leaked documents were released.
The cables "demonstrate that Israel doesn’t speak a double language and that we say in private what we say in public" about the threat of Iran’s nuclear program, he added.
The documents posted online by WikiLeaks and a select group of international media outlets show widespread concern about Iran’s nuclear program and reveal Saudi Arabia "repeatedly" urged a US military strike on the country.
"They confirm that the whole Middle East is terrified by the prospect of a nuclear Iran," the Israeli official added. "The Arab countries are pushing the United States towards military action more forcefully than Israel."
Meanwhile, the Palestinians will not be a partner for peace until they drop demands for the "right of return," Benjamin Netanyahu said two years before being elected premier, leaked US cables showed on Monday.
Details of his remarks were catalogued in a diplomatic cable sent by the then US ambassador Richard H. Jones in April 2007 when Netanyahu was leader of the opposition, which was one of hundreds of secret documents released by WikiLeaks late on Sunday.
Netanyahu told the officials that Israel would not have a partner for peace until the Palestinians dropped their demand for refugees to return to homes they either left or were forced out of in the war which accompanied Israel’s creation in 1948.
"Netanyahu noted that he thought dropping the ‘right of return’ was the acid test of Arab intentions and insisted that he would never allow a single Palestinian refugee to return to Israel," the leaked cable said.
"Israel will only have a peace partner when the Palestinians drop the right of return," it quoted him as saying, noting Israel’s rejection of the so-called Arab peace initiative because it kept the option for the right of return open.
"Asked whether Israel could accept case-by-case exceptions, Netanyahu insisted not one refugee could ever return. Israel, after all, was not asking for the right of Jews to return to Baghdad or Cairo."
The issue of refugees is one of the thorniest elements of the conflict, with the Palestinians demanding that Israel recognize the "right of return" of refugees who, with their descendants, now number 4.7 million people.
Israel rejects the demand, saying they should be accommodated within a Palestinian state.
