A new (and hardly unexpected) story is out on the Haaretz website:
Netanyahu asked Panetta to approve sale of bunker-busting bombs, U.S. official says
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested the United States approve the sale of advanced refueling aircraft as well as GBU-28 bunker-piercing bombs to Israel during a recent meeting with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, a top U.S. official said on Tuesday.
The American official said that U.S. President Barack Obama instructed Panetta to work directly with Defense Minister Ehud Barak on the matter, indicating that the U.S. administration was inclined to approve the request as soon as possible.
While it is hardly news that Israel routinely requests and the US grants weapons (as "sales" made with American money), this particular combination of weapons systems has one sole mission: it increase Israel's offensive capacity against Iran. Indeed, these weapon systems are dangerous enough that even the
Bush Administration would not sell them to Israel:
During the administration of former U.S. President George Bush, the U.S. refused to sell bunker-penetrating bombs and refueling aircrafts to Israel, as a result of American estimates that Israel would then use them to strike Iran's nuclear facilities.
Now, the Haaretz story quotes an anonymous source, and may simply be propaganda to again increase tension, rather than an honest report of the facts. But this report bears watching. If it is true, then at a time when Obama is reassuring the American public that he does not stand with those "beating the drums of war", he would be simultaneously arming Israel to launch an offensive war against Iran.
As Obama has so often asked, we should watch his deed much more than his words.