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Netanyahu: I Oppose Iran Deal Because I Want to Prevent War, and This Deal Will Bring War

(Prime Minister's Office) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in a webcast on Tuesday. The nuclear deal with Iran doesn't block Iran's path to the bomb. It actually gives Iran two paths to the bomb. Iran can get to the bomb by keeping the deal or Iran could get to the bomb by violating the deal. Keeping the deal allows Iran to maintain and eventually expand a vast and increasingly sophisticated nuclear infrastructure. This infrastructure is unnecessary for civilian nuclear energy, but it's entirely necessary for nuclear weapons. Astonishingly, the deal gives Iran's illicit nuclear program full international legitimacy and makes it far easier for Iran to build dozens, even hundreds of nuclear weapons in a little over a decade. Iran has a second path to the bomb, one that would give it a nuclear weapon in far less time. Iran could violate the deal. Now, people argue that Iran will be prevented from cheating because we'll have good intelligence and unprecedented inspections. But honestly, for years none of us discovered the massive underground nuclear facilities Iran was building at Fordo and at Natanz, or that the Syrians were building a nuclear reactor for plutonium production. So it's very precarious to bet the deal's success on intelligence. Neither intelligence nor inspections prevented North Korea from building atomic bombs despite assurances that they wouldn't be able to do so. The deal also gives Iran a massive infusion of cash and Iran will use this cash to fund its aggression in the region and its terrorism around the world. As a result of this deal, there'll be more terrorism. There will be more attacks. And more people will die. Here in Israel, Isaac Herzog, the leader of the Labor opposition, the man who ran against me in this year's election, has said that there is no daylight between us when it comes to the deal with Iran. This is simply not a partisan issue in Israel. A huge majority of Israelis oppose the deal. The deal's supporters claim that those who oppose this deal want war. That's utterly false. We in Israel don't want war because it's we who are on the front lines. We face Iran's terror on three borders. We face tens of thousands of Iranian rockets aimed at all our cities. We face Iran, whose regime repeatedly calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, whose terrorist proxies try to kill Jews every day, and who is also the leading state sponsor of anti-Semitism. Israelis are going to be the ones who pay the highest price if there's war and if Iran gets the bomb. The claim that we oppose this deal because we want war is outrageous. Israel wants to dismantle Iran's nuclear program and Israel wants peace. This deal will advance neither goal. I oppose this deal because I want to prevent war, and this deal will bring war.
2015-08-05 00:00:00
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