Secret U.S. memo sanctioned killing of Aulaqi

By Peter Finn, Published: September 30 2011
The Washington Post

The Justice Department wrote a secret memorandum authorizing the lethal targeting of Anwar al-Aulaqi, the American-born radical cleric who was killed by a U.S. drone strike Friday, according to administration officials.

The document was produced following a review of the legal issues raised by striking a U.S. citizen and involved senior lawyers from across the administration. There was no dissent about the legality of killing Aulaqi, the officials said.

“What constitutes due process in this case is a due process in war,” said one of the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss closely held deliberations within the administration.

The administration has faced a legal challenge and public criticism for targeting Aulaqi, who was born in New Mexico, because of constitutional protections afforded U.S. citizens. The memorandum may represent an attempt to resolve, at least internally, a legal debate over whether a president can order the killing of U.S. citizens overseas as a counterterrorism measure.

The operation to kill Aulaqi involved CIA and military assets under CIA control. A former senior intelligence official said that the CIA would not have killed an American without such a written opinion.

A second American killed in Friday’s attack was Samir Khan, a driving force behind Inspire, the English-language magazine produced by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. An administration official said the CIA did not know Khan was with Aulaqi, but they also considered Khan a belligerent whose presence near the target would not have stopped the attack.

The circumstances of Khan’s death were reminiscent of a 2002 U.S. drone strike in Yemen that targeted Abu Ali al-Harithi, a Yemeni al-Qaeda operative accused of planning the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. That strike also killed a U.S. citizen who the CIA knew was in Harithi’s vehicle but who was a target of the attack.

The Obama administration has spoken in broad terms about its authority to use military and paramilitary force against al-Qaeda and associated forces beyond “hot,” or traditional, battlefields such as Iraq or Afghanistan. Officials said that certain belligerents aren’t shielded because of their citizenship.

“As a general matter, it would be entirely lawful for the United States to target high-level leaders of enemy forces, regardless of their nationality, who are plotting to kill Americans both under the authority provided by Congress in its use of military force in the armed conflict with al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces as well as established international law that recognizes our right of self-defense,” an administration official said in a statement Friday.

President Obama and various administration officials referred to Aulaqi publicly for the first time Friday as the “external operations” chief for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a label that may be intended to underscore his status as an operational leader who posed an imminent threat.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment. The administration officials refused to disclose the exact legal analysis used to authorize targeting Aulaqi, or how they considered any Fifth Amendment right to due process.

Robert Chesney, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin who specializes in national security law, said the government likely reviewed Aulaqi’s constitutional rights, but concluded that he was an imminent threat and was deliberately hiding in a place where neither the United States nor Yemen could realistically capture him.

Last year, the Obama administration invoked the state secrets privilege to argue successfully for the dismissal of a lawsuit brought in U.S. District Court in Washington by Aulaqi’s father, Nasser, seeking to block the targeting of his son. Judge John Bates found that in Aulaqi’s case, targeting was a “political question” to be decided by the executive branch.

The decision to place Aulaqi on a capture or kill list was made in early 2010, after intelligence officials concluded that he played a direct role in the plot to blow up a jet over Detroit and had become an operational figure within al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen.

“If you are a dual national high in the Japanese operational group responsible for Pearl Harbor, you’re not exempt, and neither was” Aulaqi, the administration official said.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights argued on behalf of Aulaqi’s father last year that there is no “battlefield” in Yemen and that the administration should be forced to articulate publicly its legal standards for killing any citizen outside the United States who is suspected of terrorism.

Otherwise, the groups argued, such a killing would amount to an extrajudicial execution and would violate U.S. and international law.

“International human rights law dictates that you can’t unilaterally target someone and kill someone without that person posing an imminent threat to security interests,” said Vince Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “The information that we have, from the government’s own press releases, is that he is somehow loosely connected, but there is no specific evidence of things he actualized that would meet the legal threshold for making this killing justifiable as a matter of human rights law.”

ACLU lawyer Ben Wizner said that Aulaqi had been targeted for nearly two years and that the government would appear to have a very elastic definition of imminent threat.

The former senior intelligence official said the CIA did reviews every six months to ensure that those targeted for possible killing remained threats as defined by law and presidential findings.

The administration describes al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as an associated force of the original terrorist group that was led by Osama bin Laden until he was killed, making AQAP subject to congressionally authorized military force. Officials said Aulaqi was part of an enemy force and posed an ongoing, immediate danger.

Staff writer Mary Beth Sheridan and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Anwar al-Aulaqi’s death reopens wounds for Dar Al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church

By Michelle Boorstein and Kafia A. Hosh, Published: September 30 2011
The Washington Post

At the Northern Virginia mosque where Anwar al-Aulaqi once preached, the news of his killing ripped open a wound that congregants wish would heal.

For a decade, Dar al-Hijrah has been haunted by its association with Aulaqi, who was the imam at the Falls Church mosque on Sept. 11, 2001, but had yet to publicly embrace the anti-American extremism that would make him a target of U.S. drones.

Tariq Nelson, an active member of the mosque, expressed weariness Friday at trying to explain Aulaqi’s apparent shift from moderate interfaith activist to violent jihadist.

“When you feel like you’ve been continuously embarrassed,” Nelson said, “it’s painful and humiliating.”

Imam Shaker Elsayed acknowledged Aulaqi’s death at a crowded Friday afternoon prayer service. “May Allah give him mercy,” the imam told dozens of worshipers, noting that “when anyone leaves this life . . . their judgment is reserved by Allah.”

Those who killed Aulaqi, Elsayed added, “need to equally prepare for that moment” when they also will be judged by Allah.

Aulaqi is an uncomfortable subject at Dar al-Hijrah, where people emphatically reject his advocacy of violence but agree with his criticism of U.S. foreign policy and heavy military presence in the Middle East.

Many complain that they have endured suspicion because of Aulaqi’s past ties to the mosque.

“I know for a fact that my attendance has been documented” by the government, said Sandra Amen-Bryan, a psychologist from Arlington County. “I’m not breaking the law. I’m coming here to worship. What I resent is the mindset that because this individual is guilty then the rest of us are guilty by association.”

Jennifer Rogers, 32, said she was uncomfortable with the government-sanctioned killing of an American citizen — a sentiment echoed by mosque leaders and a number of Muslim organizations.

“They should have at least brought him back here and put him through this judicial system,” said Rogers, an Alexandria resident who converted to Islam in 2000. “It’s his right as a citizen.”

In a statement, mosque officials called the killing of an American “an assassination.”

They stressed that when Aulaqi preached at Dar al-Hijrah 10 years ago, he “was known for his interfaith outreach, civic engagement and tolerance in the Northern Virginia community.” It wasn’t until he left the United States and was allegedly tortured by Yemeni authorities, the statement said, that he began preaching violence and encouraging “impressionable American Muslims to attack their own country. With his death, Al-Awlaki will no longer be able to spread his hate speech over the internet to our youth.”

Aulaqi was hired in 2001 to be the imam at Dar al-Hijrah, where more than 3,000 worshipers from more than 35 countries pack into the prayer hall every Friday.

Bassam Estwani, one of the mosque’s early founders, said he “never saw any sign of extremist thinking. He was a scholar, spoke both languages, Arabic and English, very well. I wondered to myself afterward, is he the same person who spoke here?”

Right after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Aulaqi was in demand as an articulate spokesman for American Islam and interfaith understanding. He did a chat about Ramadan on washingtonpost.com and allowed a Post videographer to chronicle a day in the life of an American imam.

Eventually, however, federal investigators learned that two of the Sept. 11 hijackers had briefly worshiped at Dar al-Hijrah when Aulaqi was the imam. Their appearance at the mosque “may not have been coincidental,” the federal 9/11 Commission concluded.

In 2002, Aulaqi declined an offer from two Dar al-Hijrah leaders to return to the mosque. He was seriously considering running for parliament in Yemen, he told Hossein Goal, a former member of Dar al-Hijrah’s executive committee, and Imam Johari Abdul-Malik. He also was mulling hosting a TV show in the gulf or landing a teaching job at an Islamic university.

Staff writer William Wan contributed to this report.

al-Aulaqi killed in Yemen

SOURCE: AP

The American-born cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi, who was killed in Yemen Friday, became a top target for U.S. counterterrorism operations through his reported role in a range of attacks and attempted attacks. Learn more about those attacks and his life:
2011
Yemen drone strike

Sept. 30
Successful strike

Aulaqi perished in an attack on his convoy by a U.S. drone and jet, 75 miles east of Sanaa between Al Jawf and Marib.

May
Unsuccessful strike

As Yemen is gripped by an uprising against President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime, a U.S. drone targets Aulaqi but the mission fails.
2010

Oct.
Linked to mail bombs

Aulaqi is believed to have had a hand in mail bombs addressed to Chicago-area synagogues, packages intercepted in Dubai and Europe.

May
British cabinet member stabbed

British cabinet minister Stephen Timms is stabbed by a woman who said she was influenced by al-Aulaqi's sermons.
Times Square bomber

Attempted bombing of Times Square

Faisal Shahzad, who attempted to detonate a bomb in Times Square bomber on May 1, 2010, was inspired by Aulaqi's sermons and videos. He does not appear to have been in touch with him directly.

April

President Obama makes Aulaqi the first American placed on the CIA target list.

March

An Aulaqi tape is released in which he urges American Muslims to mount attacks in the U.S.
2009
Underwear bomber

Dec. 25
Christmas underwear bomber

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian "underwear bomber" who tried to blow up a plane headed for Detroit, Mich., on Dec. 25, 2009, was inspired by Aulaqi. In addition, Aulaqi put Abdulmutallab "in touch with plotters and trainers of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula."

Dec. 24
Unsuccessful drone strike

Aulaqi was believed to be at a gathering of al-Qaeda figures in Yemen's Shabwa mountains, a day before Abdulmutallab tried to blow up the airliner near Detroit. Yemeni warplanes, using U.S. intelligence help, struck the tents but Aulaqi and others were believed to have driven off hours earlier.
Fort Hood attack

Nov. 5
Fort Hood attack

Nidal Hasan's attack on Fort Hood was also inspired by the Yemeni cleric. Hasan exchanged emails with Aulaqi before the attack, but it is unclear if Aulaqi was giving him instructions or was just his religious mentor.
2007

After release from prison, Aulaqi moves to the Awalik tribal heartland in eastern province of Shabwa, an al-Qaeda stronghold, living in his family home in the mountain hamlet of Saeed and occasionally preaching in a local mosque.
2006
Aulaqi arrested

Yemeni authorities arrest Aulaqi with a group of five Yemenis suspected of kidnapping a Shiite Muslim teenager for ransom. He is released without trial after a year in prison following the intercession of his tribe.
Falls Church mosque
2001
9/11 investigation

After Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Aulaqi was interviewed at least four times in two weeks about his dealings with three of the hijackers aboard the flight that slammed into the Pentagon. The Sept. 11 Commission report said Aulaqi was also investigated by the FBI in 1999 and 2000. None of the investigations led to criminal charges against him.

Aulaqi becomes preacher at Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia, outside Washington.
2000

Aulaqi starts preaching in San Diego mosque where he met two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi.
1991
Studies in the U.S.

Aulaqi returns to the United States to study civil engineering at Colorado State University, then education at San Diego State University. He later does doctoral work at George Washington University.
1978

His family returns to Yemen, where his father serves as agriculture minister and is a professor at Sanaa University.
1971

April 22

Aulaqi was born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents.

As incomes drop, Americans dip into savings

By Jia Lynn Yang and and Erica W. Morrison, Published: September 30 2011
The Washington Post

The personal income of Americans dropped for the first time in two years in August, according to government figures released Friday, forcing people to dip into their savings to cover their spending.

The drop in earnings is just one more sign that the country’s stalling economy is straining families — and it’s consistent with a generally bleak picture for American workers whose wages have remained stagnant since 2001.

Personal income fell 0.1 percent in August compared with the month before, the first decline since October 2009, the government said. As a result, Americans tapped their reserves, dropping the personal savings rate to its lowest point since December 2009, or 4.5 percent. Meanwhile, spending remained flat, when adjusting for inflation.

The trend is rooted in the country’s nagging unemployment problem, analysts said. N o new jobs were created in August, keeping the unemployment rate stuck at 9.1 percent.

“You have a massive number of families, and not just the unemployed, who feel like their financial position is not where they want it to be,” said David Neumark, professor of economics and director of the Center for Economics & Public Policy at University of California, Irvine. “And the only way to get there is to save more.”

Meanwhile, prices for food and gas are creeping up, rising 0.2 percent in August compared with July. Energy prices rose 1.2 percent while food prices ticked up 0.6 percent.

“In order to cope with higher prices for most goods and services — especially food and gasoline — many households had no choice but to save less, spend more and get less,” wrote Chris G. Christopher Jr., senior principal economist at IHS Global Insight in a note. “All of this is happening in an economic environment with volatile equity markets, falling household assets, diminishing 401(k)s, high unemployment and depressed consumer confidence.”

Michael Marshall, 54, a District resident, said he left his full-time job at Staples in 2008 to help care for his mother. On Friday afternoon, he was applying for jobs at a city unemployment center on Minnesota Avenue in Northeast.

“My savings account is gone as of this moment that we’re speaking,” Marshall said. “It’s a full-time job looking for a job.”

He posted his résuméon the government unemployment Web site and has set up three interviews already.

Some local shoppers have noticed the rising prices.

“Prices have gone up,” said Vanesssa Jordan of Fredicksburg, Va., who was shopping at the Costco store at Pentagon City in Arlington. “You have to start holding on to what you have.”

The recent recession laid bare broader economic trends that have been squeezing the middle class for years.

According to Census data released in September, the typical American family actually saw its earnings decline in the past 10 years, the first time that has happened in this country for at least five decades. Meanwhile, executive pay has exploded and corporate profits have hit record levels.

Government data show that real median household income hit a peak of $53,252 in 1999. Wages began stalling years before the financial crisis, but persistent joblessness has exacerbated the issue.

Consumers appear to be holding back on their spending with the jobs crisis so persistent and wages flat.

Reflecting the grim mood about the economy, stocks fell Friday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunging 2.2 percent, or 241 points, to close at 10,913.38. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index, a broader measure, dropped 2.5 percent and has fallen more than 14 percent in the past three months. The quarterly drop is the worst since the financial crisis of 2008.

Business activity, however, appears to be on the rise. The Institute for Supply Management-Chicago’s business barometer increased to 60.4 in September, up from 56.5 in August.

morrisone@washpost.com

Was the BBC victim of a hoax? No, say the Yes Men

By Dylan Stableford | The Cutline
9/27/2011

"Governments don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world."

That's what a purported London-based independent trader named Alessio Rastani told the BBC on Monday in a jaw-dropping interview that quickly went viral.

But just as quickly, rumors swirled that Rastani was actually a member of the Yes Men, a loose-knit group of merry pranksters and imposters that attempt to manipulate the media with the goal of exposing the dubious conduct of big corporations.

The Yes Men publicly denied that Rastani is a member. And the BBC said in a statement that it doesn't think he is, either: "We've carried out detailed investigations and can't find any evidence to suggest that the interview with Alessio Rastani was a hoax. He is an independent market trader and one of a range of voices we've had on air to talk about the recession."

"We've never heard of Rastani," the group said in a statement of its own. "He isn't a Yes Man. He's a real trader who is, for one reason or another, being more honest than usual."

Rastani has an active Twitter feed, Facebook account and blog--all consistently updated. And Rastani gave an extensive interview to Forbes insisting he is who he says he is--an independent trader who works from his South London home.

Felix Salmon of Reuters has another theory: that Rastani, who bears a striking resemblance to a member of the Yes Men, is both a trader and member of the troupe.

"Independent traders are, well, independent," Salmon noted. "You don't need to spend very much time hanging around the comments section at Zero Hedge to discern a strong nihilistic and even anti-capitalist strain to much of the thinking in that community. Independent traders are often men in their 20s and 30s who inherited a substantial sum of money and who for whatever reason don't have a more attractive opportunity in the regular workforce. They work from home, they tend to have a strong contrarian streak, and they have a lot of time on their hands.

"All of which is entirely consistent with the profile of the kind of people who might join or become the Yes Men," Salmon added.

For his part, Rastani says he was simply misunderstood.

"I have no idea why I'm getting this attention," Rastani told Forbes. "I don't think it was news. For someone to say what I said, I thought everybody already knew this kind of stuff. The big players of funds rule the world, I don't think that was news. And what I said about making money from a crash, obviously not everybody knows about that, you can make money from a downward market."

Rastani added: "A lot of people just got the wrong end of the foot, misunderstood what I was saying. They thought I was joyful or licking my lips about the idea of making money from people's miseries. That's probably the way it looked on the video. But if they watch the whole video, what I was really trying to say is people need to educate themselves about how to do that ... what I was trying to say was, look, everyone should basically prepare. I was trying to be the good guy. If this market's going to crash, then you've got to prepare yourself."

Israel building plan for East Jerusalem draws fresh rebuke from U.S., others

By Joel Greenberg and Joby Warrick, Published: September 27 2011
WP

JERUSALEM — Israel advanced plans Tuesday to build 1,100 homes in a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem, drawing condemnations from Palestinian officials and a sharp rebuke from the Obama administration, which warned that the move could undercut efforts to restart negotiations.

The Israeli decision— a procedural step in a permitting process that was already underway — comes at a particularly sensitive moment, after a controversial Palestinian application last week for membership in the United Nations and amid parallel efforts by global powers to prod the two sides to sit down together for the first time in more than a year.

The “Quartet” of Middle East mediators — the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia — proposed new talks to begin next month with the aim of reaching a comprehensive settlement by the end of 2012. But the Palestinians have said they will not return to negotiations unless Israel halts construction of settlements on land they seek for a future state. They claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli Interior Ministry said the Jerusalem District Planning Committee had advanced the housing plan in the neighborhood of Gilo, which is built on West Bank land annexed to Jerusalem, making the project available for public objections for a mandatory 60-day period before a decision on final approval.

Roei Lachmanovich, a spokesman for Interior Minister Eli Yishai, said the move was purely technical and “by no means a signal” to the Palestinians. Other Israeli officials agreed, saying the timing of the decision was a local matter outside the direct control of the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu--who, in fact, has intervened in the past to delay such plans.

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said the Israeli decision amounted to “1,100 nos to the resumption of peace talks.”

“Israel wants to ensure that there will be no land left for a two-state solution,” he said.

The Quartet proposal calls on the Israelis and Palestinians “to refrain from provocative actions if negotiations are to be effective” and reiterates their obligations under the 2003 blueprint for peace known as the “road map,” which calls for an Israeli settlement freeze and a cessation of violence by the Palestinians.

In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the Israeli move “counterproductive to our efforts to resume direct negotiations between the parties.”

“As you know, we have long urged both sides to avoid any kind of action which could undermine trust, including, and perhaps most particularly, in Jerusalem, any action that could be viewed as provocative by either side,” Clinton said at a news conference.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said the administration was “deeply disappointed” by Israel’s announcement.

“We have maintained all along that each side in the dispute between the Palestinians and the Israelis should take steps that bring them closer to direct negotiations to resolve the issues that stand in the way of Palestinian statehood and a secure Jewish state of Israel,” Carney told reporters traveling aboard Air Force One. “When either side takes unilateral action, it makes it harder to achieve that. We make our views known, just as we did, obviously, with regard to the Palestinian action at the United Nations.”

The E.U.’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said the Israeli decision “should be reversed.”

The United Nations also criticized the move. “This sends the wrong signal at this sensitive time,” said Richard Miron, spokesman for the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Robert Serry. “Settlement activity is contrary to the Roadmap and to international law and undermines the prospect of resuming negotiations and reaching a two-state solution to the conflict.”

Israeli officials sought to play down the decision, noting that the proposed Gilo construction project had long been in the works and undergoing normal bureaucratic review. Netanyahu, in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, said the Gilo building plan was being handled “the same way Israeli governments have been doing for years.”

“We plan in Jerusalem. We build in Jerusalem, period,” Netanyahu said.

He ruled out another Israeli settlement freeze after a 10-month moratorium on new building expired last September, leading the Palestinians to break off negotiations. “We already gave at the office,” Netanyahu said.

greenbergj@washpost.com

Senator: Consider military action against Pakistan

9/25/1011

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee said Sunday that the U.S. should consider military action against Pakistan if it continues to support terrorist attacks against American troops in Afghanistan.

"The sovereign nation of Pakistan is engaging in hostile acts against the United States and our ally Afghanistan that must cease, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told "Fox News Sunday."

He said if experts decided that the U.S. needs to "elevate its response," he was confident there would be strong bipartisan support in Congress for such action.

Graham did not call for military action but said "all options" should be considered. He said assistance to Pakistan should be reconfigured and that the U.S. should no longer designate an amount of aid for Pakistan but have a more "transactional relationship" with the country.

"They're killing American soldiers," he said. "If they continue to embrace terrorism as a part of their national strategy, we're going to have to put all options on the table, including defending our troops."

In testimony last week to Graham's committee, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, said Pakistan's powerful military intelligence agency had backed extremists in planning and executing the assault on the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan and a truck bomb attack that wounded 77 American soldiers. Both occurred this month.

Mullen contended that the Haqqani insurgent network "acts as a veritable arm" of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency as it undermined U.S.-Pakistan relations, already tenuous because of the war in Afghanistan. Pakistan exports violence, Mullen said, and threatens any success in the 10-year-old war.

Graham said Pakistan does cooperate with the U.S. in actions against al-Qaida. But he said the Pakistani military feels threatened by a democracy in Afghanistan and is betting that the Taliban will come back there.

"The best solution is for Pakistan to fight all forms of terrorism, embrace working with us so that we can deal with terrorism along their border, because it is the biggest threat to stability," he said. "But Pakistan is terrorism itself. They have made a tremendous miscalculation."

Netanyahu declines to reject GOP critique of Obama on Israel

By Rosalind S. Helderman, Sunday, September 25, 2011
WP

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Sunday that his nation’s bond with the United States and President Obama remains strong, but he declined to counter harsh criticism of Obama’s Middle East policy by Republican presidential candidates.

Speaking as the United Nation’s Security Council prepares to debate an application to create a Palestinian state—a move Obama has pledged the United States will block—Netanyahu said he stands ready to sit down and negotiate a peace deal. But he said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ request for UN intervention was undermining peace efforts.

“I think the Palestinians are trying to get away without negotiating,” Netanyahu said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “They’re trying to basically detour around peace negotiations by going to the United Nations and having the automatic majority in the United Nations General Assembly give them a state.”

Netanyahu’s comments followed Abbas’s return to the West Bank over the weekend, where he was greeted with a hero’s welcome after making the statehood application to the UN in the face of tremendous pressure from the United States to drop the bid.

Abbas suggested to reporters that he would likely reject a new blueprint for talks advanced by international mediators because he believed it did not adequately address Palestinian conditions for talks.

Netanyahu said he stood ready to meet Abbas at any time, insisting he would have met at the UN building in New York City, which both men visited last week to address the statehood issue.

But he said he would not end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank without a negotiated deal that offered Israel security guarantees. He rejected suggestions that Israel’s position has caused the country to become more isolated as Muslim nations have rebelled against dictators who had been less hostile to the Jewish state during the so-called Arab Spring.

“I’m not going to head recklessly to feed more territory to the insatiable crocodile of militant Islam, as I call it,” Netanyahu said during the “Meet the Press” interview. “I want to first erect a wall against this military that takes over every territory that we vacate. I want to make sure that it doesn’t snap its gaping jaws, as I said, and devour us for dinner. That’s peace.”

Israel’s position remains viable, Netanyahu said, because of its strong friendship with the United States, which he said crosses party lines and has been represented by each occupant of the White House, including President Obama.

But asked if he disagreed with comments from Republican presidential candidate Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who last week referred to Obama’s policy toward Israel as “naive, arrogant, misguided and dangerous,” Netanyahu demurred.

“David,” he replied to “Meet the Press” host David Gregory, “you’re trying to throw me under the bus of America politics. Well, guess what. I’m not going to be thrown.

“I think the important thing to understand is this, and this is the truth about American politics. Israel enjoys tremendous bipartisan support,” Netanyahu said.