(Haaretz).Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and United States President Barack Obama will discuss the threat posed by Iran's nuclear ambitions, a close aide to the Israeli premier said Sunday.
"This is an existential matter," said National Security Council head Uzi Arad. "Iran is constantly advancing toward a nuclear capability, and joint efforts with the [Obama] administration to prevent this will be at the center of the discussion."
"There is no subject more important to Israel, and the administration knows this," Arad added. "There is a sense of urgency and that time is against us. No one will dictate to the other, but the subject is urgent from our point of view, and the Americans understand the timeframe very well."
Obama has said he cannot tell Israel not to fear Iran's nuclear ambitions, in comments published Saturday ahead of the meeting with Netanyahu.
On the matter of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, Arad said it was possible that there would be differences of approach between the sides.
"There are many hurdles on the road to living side by side in peace with the Palestinians," Arad said, citing the takeover of the Gaza Strip by Islamic Hamas militants in June 2007.
"That is the presence of a huge terrorist infrastructure that was put in place, established precisely at the time when Israel evacuated Gaza and allowed the Palestinians to rule themselves," he said.
But he added that the "practical approach" that guides both sides will be that which determines the results of the meeting.
