While Reuters promises “unbiased and reliable news,” Crispian Balmer’s June 22 article, “Despite clashes with US presidents, Israel’s Netanyahu usually gets his way,” takes an unanticipated detour into dream deciphering.
In a long piece (also available in Arabic) which reads more like an Op-Ed rife with editorializing and snarky asides as opposed to a fact-based Reuters article, Balmer bizarrely takes the liberty of mining the Prime Minister’s supposed dreams:
Fast forward five weeks and the United States has bombed Iran’s main nuclear installations, fulfilling a decades-old dream of Netanyahu to convince Washington to bring its full military might to thwart Tehran’s atomic ambitions.
How does a news reporter purport to know Prime Netanyahu’s dreams? While we can’t know Netanyahu’s dreams, we do know his statements concerning U.S. action on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. And they all point towards encouraging the U.S. to lock into a stricter deal with Iran and tougher sanctions, not war.
Indeed, Balmer selectively quotes from Netanyahu’s 2015 speech to Congress to prop up his false argument that the Israeli Prime Minister was braying for the U.S. to launch a war against Iran. But here’s the part of the speech which Balmer ignores and which undermines the whole baseless narrative of a decades-old Netanyahu effort to push the United States into war with Iran:
The alternative to this bad deal is a much better deal.
A better deal that doesn’t leave Iran with a vast nuclear infrastructure and such a short break-out time. A better deal that keeps the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in place until Iran’s aggression ends.
A better deal that won’t give Iran an easy path to the bomb. A better deal that Israel and its neighbors may not like, but with which we could live, literally.
Reuters’ own coverage over the years documents that Prime Minister Netanyahu repeatedly pushed for a better deal, not a U.S. war with Iran.
In 2012, Reuters reported that Netanyahu called on President Obama to set red lines with Iran, not wage war:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Sunday that Iran would reach the brink of being able to build a nuclear bomb in just six or seven months, adding urgency to his demand that President Barack Obama set a “red line” for Tehran amid the worst U.S.-Israeli rift in decades.
Taking to the airwaves to make his case directly to the American public, Netanyahu said that by mid-2013 Iran would have 90 percent of the material it needed for an atomic weapon. He again pressed the United States to spell out limits that Tehran must not cross if it is to avoid military action – something Obama has refused to do.
A separate Reuters article in September 2012 also spoke of “Netanyahu’s sharpened demands for a tougher U.S. line against Iran.”
In 2013, Reuters reported that Netanyahu urged international pressure on Iran, not U.S. war:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Sunday for no relaxation of international pressure on Iran to curb its nuclear efforts after the election of a new president widely hailed as a moderate.
Later that year, Reuters again reported that Netanyahu urged no let-up in international economic sanctions. . .
Addressing parliament, in a session focusing on housing issues, Netanyahu said continued economic pressure on Iran was the best alternative to two other options, which he described as a bad deal and war.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, 2015 (GPO Photo by Haim Zach)
In 2015, Reuters reported that Netanyahu was seeking a “better deal,” not U.S. war with Iran:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the United States on Sunday to seek a better deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program and said he would press American lawmakers not to give Tehran “a free path to the bomb.”
In 2019, Reuters’ Stephen Farrell and Dan Williams did not report that Netanyahu called for the United States to attack Iran (“With Biden seeking nuclear detente, Israel ratchets up pressure on Iran“). Here’s what the pair of longtime Reuters’ journalists reported:
With those indirect discussions expected to resume in coming days, Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu has urged far more stringent curbs on Iran. . . .
But Israel wants far more conditions added [to the 2015 JCPOA deal], including the scrapping of “sunset clauses” that would allow Iran to resume some nuclear projects in the future, more extensive United Nations inspections and a credible U.S. military threat should Iran renege.
“One of the problems with the agreement is that it left Iran with a nuclear infrastructure in place which allows it – at a point of its choosing – to move ahead relatively rapidly,” a senior Israeli official told Reuters on Wednesday.
The official cited as one example the U.N. atomic watchdog’s finding in February that Iran had produced uranium metal, which can be used to make the core of an atom bomb.
“A lot of the JCPOA puts the infrastructure in the freezer or in mothballs,” the Israeli official said.
“…We believe Iran should be denied the infrastructure.”
On Wednesday Saudi Arabia echoed Israel’s concerns by urging a deal “with stronger parameters of a longer duration”. [Emphasis added.]
Later that year, Reuters reported that U.S. Treasury’s Steve
Mnuchin, speaking in Jerusalem to reporters alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who urged him to crank up pressure on Iran, offered no details on what new moves were in store. [Emphasis added.]
In 2020, Reuters reported that Netanyahu called for stronger U.S. policies reining in Iran, not war:
“There must be no return to the previous nuclear agreement. We must stick to an uncompromising policy to ensure that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said in a speech in southern Israel.
In 2021, Reuters’ Dan William reported that while Israel had its own military plans on the table, its hopes for the U.S. were stronger sanctions:
Israeli officials have voiced hope that Biden will maintain Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran, involving tough sanctions, until the Iranian nuclear programme is dismantled.
In November 2024, Reuters reported that with a potential President Trump’s win, Iran was concerned that Israel would be able to secure a more stringent U.S. deal, not war:
They anticipate that Trump, who was president in 2017-21, will exert utmost pressure on Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to cave in by accepting a nuclear containment deal on terms set by himself and Israel.
Furthermore, this particular 2024 article makes abundantly clear that President Trump has a very tough record on Iran, belying Balmer’s faulty and tendentious argumentation — one that happens to echo antisemitic tropes — that Netanyahu the warmonger pushed Trump the peacemaker into attacking Iran.
Thus, Balmer’s assertions don’t match up with Reuters’ news coverage. They do, however, hew awfully close to one 2015 item on Reuters’ site: an opinion piece by Shibley Telhami.
CAMERA contacted Reuters to urge a thorough revamping of this article including the removal of snarky editorializing, the elimination of false argumentation not backed by the historical record or Reteurs’ own archives, and the cherry-picked caricature of Netanyahu’s relationship with U.S. presidents. Alternatively, we urged Reuters to recategorize the opinion piece as an opinion piece.
Netanyahu repeatedly urged for a better deal, not war. CAMERA urges better, more reliable and less biased Reuters coverage of U.S.-Israeli interactions around the Iranian nuclear issue.
See also “Forbes Fibs on Netanyahu’s Alleged Warmongering” and Dream Scenario: “AFP Corrects After Alleging Sinwar’s Dream Is State in Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem“