WP:  Israel tries to jump-start calls for Iran nuclear sanctions

Israeli officials are beginning to signal impatience with the slow pace of diplomacy aimed at restraining Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

In Jerusalem on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stressed the need for the international community to join a U.S. sanctions push aimed at limiting Iran’s nuclear program. He suggested the Iranian leadership’s days could be numbered if it continues to seek nuclear capability.

“The stronger those sanctions are, the more likely it will be that the Iranian regime will have to choose between advancing its nuclear program and advancing the future of its own permanence,” Netanyahu said. He added: “I think that the international community and the leading countries in the international community have to join the American effort. And Israel has been helping out with key countries and continues to do so.”

Netanyahu’s message is being reinforced by his deputy foreign minister, Daniel Ayalon, who arrived in Washington on Tuesday for urgent meetings on Iran with senior State Department and White House officials, including Deputy Secretary of State James B. Steinberg, Undersecretary of State William J. Burns and White House nuclear expert Gary Samore.

Ayalon traveled to Washington to emphasize Israel’s growing displeasure and nervousness with the sanctions debate at the U.N. Security Council, according to a senior Israeli official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive diplomacy.

AFP:  ‘Grim’ prospects for crippling UN Iran sanctions: Israel

Israel’s UN ambassador on Tuesday said prospects for crippling UN sanctions against Iran were “grim” because Russia and China want to use diplomacy to convince Iran to scale back its nuclear ambitions.

“The chances now seem grim regarding sanctions that will be crippling,” Ambassador Gabriela Shalev told reporters here.

She said Russia and China, two veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council, “are still looking to the diplomatic track” and appear reluctant to back a new round of tough sanctions proposed by Washington and its Western allies.

“The Chinese and the Russians still hope that diplomacy will work. They do not want to inflict any harm on the Iranian people,” she added.

Shalev said that if the 15-member council was unable to agree on crippling sanctions, then Israel “will look to the countries themselves” to slap additional bilateral sanctions.