Responding to comments by US President Barack Obama, who said that Israel has acknowledged that Iran is keeping its end of the nuclear deal, the Defense Ministry released a highly unusual and strongly-worded statement on Friday, comparing the arrangement to the failed 1938 Munich pact with the Nazis. Israel and many American Jewish groups fiercely opposed the deal.
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“The same is true about Iran, which has announced clearly and publicly that its objective is the destruction of Israel and was ranked in a recent State Department report as the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism”.
Nagel told the ambassador that Netanyahu stressed that Israel’s stance on the Iran deal had not changed, and he emphasized the centrality to Israel of its vital relationship with the United States, noting that Israel “has no greater ally than the United States”.
“The Israeli security establishment believes that agreements only have value if they are based on existing reality and have no value if the facts on the ground are entirely opposite”, the Israeli Defense Ministry said in a statement, noting that Iran “has explicitly and publicly stated that its goal is the destruction of the State of Israel”. Obama’s fantasy about Iran’s intentions has been exposed numerous times since the nuclear deal was agreed to.
The Defense Ministry, however, said that the global lessons from the 1930s, when the Nazis were gaining power, also hold true for Iran today, which openly announces its aim to destroy the State of Israel.
“As [Netanyahu] outlined in his speech to the United Nations a year ago, now it is important that those who agree and for those who object to cooperate in order to achieve three objectives”, the PMO statement said.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu looks forward to further strengthening the alliance between Israel and the United States with President Obama and with the next US administration”, it added.
When the deal was signed last summer between Iran and world powers, Yisrael Beytenu party leader and current Defense Minister Liberman compared it to the 1938 Munich Agreement, calling the deal with Tehran “total capitulation to unrestrained terrorism and violence in the worldwide arena”. And when the deal expires, it will be just weeks from acquiring a nuclear bomb.
President Barack Obama delivering a statement on U.S. -Iran relations, including the release of the American hostages that were held in Iran, in the cabinet room of the White House in Washington, D.C., January 17, 2016.
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“I don’t know to which Israelis he [Obama] spoke recently”, said Hanegbi.
