Claim: In 2014 President Obama threatened to shoot down Israeli jets planning an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
Example: [Collected via e-mail, February 2015]
Is it true the President Obama threatened to shoot down Israeli fighter jets in order to prevent their attack on Iran?
Origins: On
Following Obama's threat, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was reportedly forced to abort the planned Iran attack. According to Al-Jarida, the Netanyahu government took the decision to strike Iran some time in 2014 soon after Israel had discovered the United States and Iran had been involved in secret talks over Iran's nuclear program and were about to sign an agreement in that regard behind Israel's back. The report claimed that an unnamed Israeli minister who has good ties with the US administration revealed the attack plan to Secretary of State John Kerry, and that Obama then threatened to shoot down the Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran.
The Bethlehem-based news agency Ma'an has cited a Kuwaiti newspaper report Saturday, that US President Barack Obama thwarted an Israeli military attack against Iran's nuclear facilities in 2014 by threatening to shoot down Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran.
Israel Nation News also offered a quote from an interview President Jimmy Carter's former national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, gave to the Daily Beast back in 2009:
"We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?"
While Brzezinski suggested in a 2009 interview that the United States might shoot down Israeli fighter jets if they entered restricted airspace over Iraq, that in itself does not mean that President Obama took such advice and turned it into a tangible threat issued more than five years later. Additionally, the White House has posted a tweet denying the report:
Like a lot rumors lately about Iran talks, there is no truth to "reports" about Obama & Israeli jets.
WH National Security (@NSCPress) March 2, 2015
Last updated: 2 March 2015
 | Sources: |
Langfan, Mark. "Report: Obama Threatened to Shoot Down IAF Iran Strike." Israel Nation News. 1 March 2015. Evans, Harold "Does America Still Matter? Zbigniew Brzezinski's 'Strategic Vision.'" Daily Beast. 7 June 2012.