Israel will risk tensions with Biden to block Iran, Netanyahu says
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel must prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon even at the cost of tensions with the Biden administration.
“An Iranian nuclear bomb is a threat for the continuation of the Zionist project and we must fight it relentlessly. If we have to choose between friction with our great friend the U.S. and the elimination of this existential threat, the elimination of the threat will come first,” Netanyahu said at a ceremony for the new director of Israel’s Mossad spy agency.
‘Israel’, he said, must “do everything, I mean everything, in order to ensure that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon under any circumstance.”
The U.S. is holding indirect talks with Iran on a mutual return to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.
Netanyahu, who may be in his final days as prime minister, is a fierce critic of the deal and contends a U.S. return would take the pressure off the Iranian regime.
Netanyahu added that he told U.S. President Joe Biden that “With or without a deal, we will keep doing anything in our power in order to thwart Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons.”
“Containment is not an option,” Netanyahu said.
On the other side, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz attacked Netanyahu for his remarks and claimed he was damaging Israel’s relations with the Biden administration.
“The Biden administration is a true friend of Israel and Israel will have no better partner than the U.S. and if there are differences they will be solved in direct talks in closed rooms and not through defiant rhetoric that could harm Israel’s security,” Gantz stated.
Gantz will take off Wednesday for a snap trip to Washington for talks with his American counterpart Lloyd Austin and US President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan, his office announced on Tuesday.
Gantz during the visit will submit a billion-dollar request to the Pentagon to replenish the rocket defence system following Israel’s aggression on the Gaza Strip, in which at least 279 Palestinians were killed, including 69 children and 40 women, and 1,910 others injured.
