Obama and Netanyahu
Obama and NetanyahuFlash 90

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has not yet completed writing the speech he will give at the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday. He intends to complete drafting the speech only after he meets US President Barack Obama Monday, and the speech will reflect his conclusions from that meeting.

The meeting between Netanyahu and Obama is seen as the most important event in the prime minister's current visit to Washington and New York. His speech at the UN is important in terms of the global diplomatic effort, but sources around the prime minister are well aware of the overriding importance of the position the US president takes regarding sanctions on Iran – which Tehran seeks to ease.

Netanyahu is expected to ask Obama not to ease the sanctions that the international community has placed on Iran, and to stress that Tehran's current apparently positive overtures would never have been made, if it were not for these very sanctions. Netanyahu will say that sanctions should be removed only when it is absolutely clear that Iran no longer has nuclear weapons production capability.

Obama, for his part, will seek to calm Netanyahu's concern regarding a seeming defusion of tension between the US and Iran, and to explain that the US is continuing to closely monitor Iran's actions on the ground through intelligence.

There were reports in the press before Netanyahu's departure for the US, that he possesses new and incriminating intelligence evidence that he intends to present, which will show that Iran is continuing its nuclear weapons drive despite its “smile offensive.”