Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers aren’t alone in their skepticism of Tehran’s newly friendly face. But Jerusalem’s refusal to consider giving the Iranians a chance to prove their sincerity, and to do as little as possible to acknowledge the ostensible goodwill gestures — as underlined by the Israeli delegation solo boycott of President Hasan Rouhani’s UN speech on Tuesday — threatens to isolate Israel rather than the Islamist foe it so mistrusts.
Jerusalem is well aware of this. Netanyahu knows he’s “spoiling the party,” an official told The Times of Israel with striking candor. But the prime minister, said the official, sees a “moral obligation” in insisting that Iran be measured by deeds not speeches, in urging the world not to be misled by empty rhetoric.
The Iranian charm offensive has been gathering momentum since Rouhani was elected in June. It has included ostensible respect for Jewish sensitivities, featuring Rosh Hashanah greetings from Rouhani or his Twitter managers. More substantively, it saw (quickly denied) reports last week that Iran might be prepared to close its underground enrichment facility in Fordo.
And on Tuesday, the outreach became an onslaught. In his first appearance at the United Nations General Assembly, Rouhani sought to woo the world with a brief, direct speech in which he used the word “peace” 19 times (and mentioned the Torah). Soon afterwards, in a CNN interview, he starkly separated himself still further from his easy-to-demonize predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, by acknowledging the Holocaust, though not its scope, and condemning it.
Much of the international community, though wary of Iran’s new outreach, is “tired of war” as Rouhani put it, and therefore willing to wait and see if Tehran will take actions to match its president’s new fine words. France’s president met with him on Tuesday; America’s would have done.