Israel's PM Netanyahu rejects Iran's 'deal of the century'

Bibi isn't happy. A deal may not yet have been reached in Geneva, but Israel's prime minister doesn't like what he's hearing.

He's been told that Iranian delegates are walking around with big smiles, and he says that's because they are getting 'the deal of the century', while the international community is getting short changed.

Netanyahu wants an end to all uranium enrichment in Iran, the removal of all uranium stockpiles from the country, the dismantling of some of the Iranians' most sophisticated enrichment technology and the halting of plutonium enrichment. A deal in Geneva was never going to meet those demands.

The agreement that's been floated would see the Iranians halt some enrichment activity in return for some sanctions relief.

The Israeli leader says he 'utterly rejects' such a deal, but the big powers - the P5+1 - are concentrated on making it. In fact, Israel's greatest ally, the United States, has shown a small sign that they may be getting frustrated with Netanyahu's intransigence.

"Are we better off not talking?", the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, asked on Israeli television last night.

Netanyahu's opinion matters because Israel is the country that is most likely to take action against Iran. Kerry is hoping that a deal which keeps Iran years, and not months, away from a nuclear weapon will be enough to keep Israel from acting against them.

History tells us that when Israel feels threatened, it acts, and it doesn't care what the rest of the world thinks about it - even the United States.

It carried out an airstrike on a nuclear reactor in Iraq in the 1980s, and did the same thing in Syria in 2007 - in the face of American objections. A breakthrough might be made in Geneva, but its consequences might not be peaceful.