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Netanyahu rejects 'deal of the century for Iran'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly clash before Kerry headed to Geneva for the Iran talks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gestures as he delivers a statement to the media after meeting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv November 8, 2013. Israel rejected out of hand on Friday a mooted deal between world powers and Iran, just as Kerry prepared to join nuclear talks that aim to nail down an interim agreement on the decade-old standoff. REUTERS/Debbie Hill/Pool (ISRAEL - Tags: POLITICS) - RTX1555A

This past Wednesday, Nov. 6, two days before the breakthrough and shortly before a historic agreement between Iran and the world powers is penned, a well-versed senior Israeli official told me that Israel was concerned by the “back-channel” negotiations between the United States and Iran. That channel, according to the Israeli source, has been very much alive and productive in recent weeks, having begun well before the start of the official negotiations between Iran and the powers, and that’s the main track where agreements and progress are being made. 

Israel, the senior official added, has information about what’s going on in Iran. It also knows to a great extent what is going on in the negotiations between Iran and the Western powers (5+1). What it doesn’t know anything about, is what the Americans and the Iranians are concocting in the back rooms.

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