While most media attention in the Middle East is on the resumption of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, another crucial set of meetings is taking place this week in Israel and the United States behind closed doors as Israeli and American leaders debate the Iranian nuclear issue.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) shakes hands with visiting U.S. Vice President Joe Biden during a joint statement at Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem, March 9, 2010. [Xinhua/GPO]

Since Barack Obama became American president and Benjamin Netanyahu Israeli prime minister, both a year ago, Netanyahu has been telling Obama that he believes the Iranian issue is far more pressing as far as Israel is concerned than the Palestinian track.

Experts told Xinhua on Tuesday that the ongoing visit to Israel by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is probably far more about Tehran's policies than his public endorsement of the Israeli-Palestinian indirect peace talks and that Biden carries two key messages for Israel, and for Iran: America is firmly behind Israel and will do whatever it can to stop what it believes is Iran's nuclear weapons program.

Israeli concerns

The Israeli leadership, including President Shimon Peres and Netanyahu, hammered home their concerns on the Iranian nuclear issue in talks with Biden on Tuesday and also on other recent occasions.

At a joint press conference with Biden, Netanyahu said that now Iran is the primary challenge facing both Israel and the United States and that one of Israel's top security priorities is ensuring that Iran is not building nuclear weapons.

"A person like (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad, who calls openly to destroy the State of Israel, cannot be a full member of the United Nations ... Ahmadinejad has to be isolated and not be welcomed in the capitals of the world," Peres told his guest.

The Israeli leaders also urged Washington to "surround Iran with an envelope" to protect Israel against Tehran's "missiles and nuclear threat," and to impose harsher sanctions on the Islamic republic.

"The stronger those sanctions are, the more likely it will be that the Iranian regime will have to choose between advancing its nuclear program and advancing the future of its own permanence," said Netanyahu, reiterating his claim made Monday night that "those sanctions must have teeth and to have teeth, they must bite deep into Iran's energy sector."

In an earlier speech, Netanyahu warned that "If Iran develops atomic weapons, the world would never be the same."

"We would witness a cascade of terrorism across the globe as terrorists would operate under an Iranian nuclear umbrella," he added.

Meanwhile, the Israeli prime minister has dispatched to the United States his deputy Silvan Shalom, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and perhaps most significantly the Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi.

Israel is trying to exert as much pressure as possible on Washington to try to gain maximum support and build as wide a coalition as possible against Iran, according to Daniel Pipes, the director of the Washington-based Middle East Forum.

This is creating something of a tense atmosphere between the American and Israeli leaders at the moment, he added.

"From what I understand, the Israelis are asking what serious steps Washington plans to take," he said.

If Israel is to receive those answers from anyone, it will be Biden, yet his views will not be made public other than in general terms when he speaks at Tel Aviv University on Thursday, he added.