US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey_311.
(photo credit: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
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Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Israel with his wife Thursday evening, and dined with IDF Chief of Staff
Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz.
Dempsey scheduled his visit in an effort to convince Israel to give
diplomacy and sanctions more time to stop Iran’s nuclear program.
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The US army chief will be met on Friday
morning by an honor guard at the Kirya Military Headquarters in Tel
Aviv.
He will then meet with again with Gantz, along with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, head of Military
Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi, President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu.
Dempsey’s visit comes amid rising tension between
Jerusalem and Washington over Israeli frustration with the US and Europe’s
reluctance to impose tougher economic sanctions on Iran.
While there are
differences between the countries as to the type of steps that need to be taken
to stop Iran, both Israel and the US share the same intelligence assessments
regarding the status of Iran’s nuclear program.
As reported last month in
The Jerusalem Post, Israeli and American intelligence believe that while Iran
has mastered all of the technology it requires to build a nuclear weapon, the
regime has yet to make the decision to do so.
Ahead of Dempsey’s visit,
Barak tried to ease tensions with Washington, saying that an Israeli military
strike against Iran is still “very far off.” Barak said that Israel was
coordinating with the US on how to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear
weapon.
“We haven’t made any decision to do this,” Barak told Army Radio,
adding, “This entire thing is very far off. I don’t want to provide estimates
[but] it’s certainly not urgent.”
Dempsey is expected to try and reassure
Israel that the Obama administration is committed to stopping Iran’s nuclear
program, even if it ultimately comes down to using military force. Top US
officials have recently said that the US will not allow Iran to build a nuclear
weapon.
Meanwhile Wednesday, Gantz warned NATO military commanders to
“prepare for the worst” in the wake of the ongoing upheaval in the Middle East
and the proliferation of weaponry throughout the world, especially when those
arms fall into the hands of terrorist organizations.
Addressing a meeting
of NATO military commanders at the western military alliance in Brussels, Gantz
said that the world needed to “strengthen moderate elements and weaken the
radicals.”
“Only through joint work combining tough and soft power can we
deter and in the long term overcome these radical elements,” Gantz
said.
Earlier in the day, Gantz met with the Canadian and Italian chiefs
of staff.
Gantz said that NATO’s decision to establish a missile defense
system throughout Europe was a demonstration of the severity of the threat non-conventional
weapons pose to the world.
“Ballistic missile defense systems need to be
the last line of defense and the initiative needs to come earlier by exhausting
all of the available means to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction,” he said.
On Tuesday, Gantz called on NATO military
commanders to think up new strategies for dealing with the growing instability
in the Middle East and the subsequent increase in threats.
“We are today
in a different and more dramatic reality that includes new threats and a period
of instability requiring all of us to reassess,” he said during a meeting with
General Knud Bartels, the chairman of the NATO Military Committee.
Gantz
also met with Britain’s Chief of Staff General Sir David Richards and Russia
military chief Nikolai Makarov, as well as the chiefs of staff of France, Spain,
Australia, Greece and Poland.
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