(Prime Minister's Office) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly on Thursday: Three thousand years ago, King David reigned over the Jewish state in our eternal capital, Jerusalem. I say that to all those who proclaim that the Jewish state has no roots in our region and that it will soon disappear. Throughout our history, the Jewish people have overcome all the tyrants who have sought our destruction. It's their ideologies that have been discarded by history. Today, a great battle is being waged between the modern and the medieval. Israel stands proudly with the forces of modernity. We protect the rights of all our citizens: men and women, Jews and Arabs, Muslims and Christians - all are equal before the law. The medieval forces of radical Islam, whom you just saw storming the American embassies throughout the Middle East, seek supremacy over all Muslims. They are bent on world conquest. They want to destroy Israel, Europe, America. They want to extinguish freedom. They want to end the modern world. Militant Islam has many branches - from the rulers of Iran with their Revolutionary Guards to al-Qaeda terrorists to the radical cells lurking in every part of the globe. But they are all rooted in the same bitter soil of intolerance. Nothing could imperil our common future more than the arming of Iran with nuclear weapons. To understand what the world would be like with a nuclear-armed Iran, just imagine the world with a nuclear-armed al-Qaeda. For nearly a decade, the international community has tried to stop the Iranian nuclear program with diplomacy. That hasn't worked. Iran uses diplomatic negotiations as a means to buy time to advance its nuclear program. Sanctions have not stopped Iran's nuclear program either. A red line must be drawn first and foremost on Iran's efforts to enrich uranium. The only way that you can credibly prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon is to prevent Iran from amassing enough enriched uranium for a bomb. The red line should be drawn before Iran gets to a point where it's a few months away or a few weeks away from amassing enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon. The red line must be drawn on Iran's nuclear enrichment program because these enrichment facilities are the only nuclear installations that we can definitely see and credibly target.
2012-09-28 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive