The Diane Rehm Show , May 11, 2012
MS. DIANE REHM
Thanks for joining us. I'm Diane Rehm. Twin
suicide bombings in Syria kill at least 55 and injure hundreds. Voters in
France and Greece oust incumbent leaders and Russia clamps down on protests of
Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency. Joining me to talk about the week's
top international stories on the Friday News Roundup, David Sanger of The New
York Times, Susan Glass of Foreign Policy magazine and Matt Frei of the UK's
Channel 4 News
REHM
Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to reorganize
his government and establish a coalition
SANGER
three days after announcing that they're
going to move to early elections, which .. was going to be in September, he
announces a deal with the new leader of Kadima, a former general, that gives
Netanyahu now a very solid majority , and he is now facing the likelihood that he'll
be in office for some considerable period of time, assuming this coalition
holds together, and he is freed up to some degree of some of the more
right-wing groups that had opposed further talks -- starting up further talks
with the Palestinians.
We don't know what this unity government
means for the big question of whether Israel moves to attack Iran's nuclear
facilities. Now, one could easily run to the conclusion that Kadima would be a
restraining influence and so forth. Maybe it will be.
But if something changes in the next year,
a piece of Intel that indicates the Iranians are moving forward faster than
they knew, or the discovery of a new site or something, you know have a unity
government that would, Mr. Netanyahu hopes, bridge these obvious divisions
within Israeli society about whether or not an attack is a wise idea.
