Netanyahu has never been more articulate or persuasive.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the American Jewish community in a live webcast Wednesday, making the case for why the nuclear accord between the Iranian regime and world powers is a deal that dangers Israel’s existence as a sovereign state.
The webcast was hosted by the Jewish Federations of North America and the member organizations of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which comprises over 50 Jewish bipartisan, Pro Israel organizations.
“I want to talk with you about three fatal flaws in the nuclear deal with Iran,” Netanyahu said in his opening remarks.
“The nuclear deal with Iran does not block Iran’s path to the bomb, it paves Iran’s path to the bomb.”
After the deal expires, “Iran’s breakout time will be practically zero,” he added. “By keeping the deal, Iran will become a threshold nuclear-weapons power.”
The deal does make it “harder for Iran to produce one or two nuclear weapons in the short term, but it does so at a terrible price.” In fact, “the deal makes it far easier for Iran to build dozens, even hundreds of nuclear weapons in a little over a decade,” the Israeli Prime Minister stated.
“Ten to fifteen years pass in no time… its a blink of an eye,” Netanyahu said in rallying against the deal.
And even if Iran decides to make the push for the bomb earlier, in violation of the nuclear agreement, the deal does not allow for inspections to check Iran cheating on the deal, Netanyahu argued.
The Israeli Prime Minister warned of the coming Middle East arms race that will result from the nuclear accord: “The countries in the region threatened by Iran have already made clear that they will work to develop atomic bombs of their own. The deal that was supposed to end nuclear proliferation will actually trigger nuclear proliferation.”
The deal “will trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East – the most volatile part of the planet. That’s a real nightmare,” he stated.
The Iran deal threatens the West as a whole, as it gives Iran a “massive infusion of cash,” Netanyahu said. “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 will be more terrorism, more attacks, and more people will die.”
Netanyahu said that the cash windfall (estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars) that Iran is set to receive in the next decade will turn any terrorist group it supports into a “terrorist superpower.”
“This is a very dangerous deal, and it threatens all of us,” he concluded.
“The days when the Jewish people could not, or would not, speak up for themselves– those days are over. Today, we can speak out. Today, we must speak out, and we must do so together,” he added, explaining that even his political opponents are united in opposition to the deal. “This is simply not a partisan issue in Israel,” Netanyahu explained, citing his opponent in Israel’s recent elections, Labor leader Isaac Herzog, and his strong opposition to the Iran deal.
“This isn’t about me. It isn’t about President Obama. It’s about the deal,” he explained. “I’m asking you to rise above partisan politics, as we in Israel have risen above it.”
“Judge the deal on its substance, and its substance alone,” he urged viewers.
The most “outrageous claim” made by supporters of the deal, Netanyahu said, “is that those who oppose this deal want war.”
“That’s utterly false,” he responded. “We in Israel don’t want war. We want peace.”
“We face Iran’s terror on three borders [Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza],” Netanyahu explained. “We face tens-of thousands of Iranian rockets aimed at all of our cities.” The Iranian regime “repeatedly calls for the destruction of Israel,” and their “terrorist proxies” continue to try to “kill Jews everyday,” he said.
Not only is Iran “the world’s leading state-sponsor of terrorism, it’s also the leading state-sponsor of anti-Semitism,” the prime minister of the Jewish state said.
“I don’t oppose this deal because I want war. I oppose this deal because I want to prevent war, and this deal will bring war,” Netanyahu stated. “It will spark a nuclear arms race in the region and it will feed Iran’s aggression – that will make war, perhaps the most horrific war of all.”
“Don’t let the deal supporters quash a real debate,” he urged. “The issue here is too important. Don’t let them take your voice away at this critical moment in history. What we do now will affect our lives, and the lives of our children and grandchildren in Israel, in America, everywhere. This is the time to stand up and be counted. Oppose this dangerous deal,” the Prime Minister of Israel concluded.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rallied more than 10,000 Jewish leaders and activists to reject a recently inked nuclear accord with Iran that the Israeli leader believes “will bring war” to the region and provide the Islamic Republic with a nuclear weapon within 10 to 15 years.
Netanyahu, who spoke Tuesday afternoon on a conference call organized by the Jewish Federation of North America (JFNA), urged those on the call to do all they can to defeat the deal and stop the Obama administration from enacting it.
“This deal will bring war,” Netanyahu warned. “It will spark a nuclear arms race in the region. And it would feed Iran’s terrorism and aggression that would make war, perhaps the most horrific war of all, far more likely.”
“Oppose this dangerous deal,” Netanyahu urged the audience as he outlined what were described as fatal flaws in the agreement, which will provide Iran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief while temporarily halting its nuclear enrichment program.
Netanyahu also sought to “dispel some of the misinformation” and “disinformation about the deal and Israel’s position.”
His comments appeared to be a veiled reference to an aggressive campaign by the White House and senior Obama administration officials to discredit the deal’s opponents, particularly American-Jewish and Israeli leaders.
In recent weeks, the White House has been criticized for referring to opponents of the deal as shady moneymen and lobbyists associated with the Iraq war.
Netanyahu explained that rather than inhibit and constrain Iran’s nuclear program, the deal provides Iran with two plausible pathways to a nuclear weapon.
“The nuclear deal with Iran doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb. It actually paves Iran’s path to the bomb,” he said. “Worse, it gives Iran two paths to the bomb.”
“Iran can get to the bomb by keeping the deal or Iran can get to the bomb by violating the deal,” Netanyahu said.
If Iran upholds the deal—a prospect that many critics view as unlikely—it is permitted to keep its “vast and deeply sophisticated” nuclear infrastructure in tact, according to Netanyahu.
Within 10 to 15 years after the deal is implemented, Iran’s nuclear endeavors will receive “full international legitimacy” by global powers, he warned.
By that time, “Iran will be able to produce the enriched uranium for an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons” and be able to do so “very quickly,” Netanyahu said.
“After 15 years, Iran’s breakout time will be virtually zero, just a few days,” the prime minister warned.
In addition, “the deal makes it far easier for Iran to build dozens, even hundreds of nuclear weapons” in the next decade, he added.
“We’re told this deal buys us time, but 10 to 15 years is no time at all,” Netanyahu said. “By keeping the deal Iran can get in a decade or so not just to one bomb, but to many bombs.”
Iran will arrive at the same place if it violates the deal, Netanyahu said, pushing back against claims by the Obama administration that the U.S. intelligence community could detect Iranian violations.
“It has to be said honestly, for years, none of us discovered the massive underground facilities Iran was building at Fordow and Natanz,” the country’s underground nuclear sites.
“I can tell you from experience, it’s very precarious to bet the deals’ success on intelligence,” Netanyahu said.
The international inspections regime agreed to under the deal also does little to stop Iran’s nuclear pursuit, according to Netanyahu.
It has come to light in recent days that Iran struck several secret side agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding future inspections of its nuclear sites. The United States is not permitted to know the details of such deals and also is barred from sending its own inspectors into Iran.
Netanyahu expressed particular concern about a portion of the deal that permits Iran to have 24-day notice before inspectors enter any of its nuclear sites.
“The inspectors must first share with Iran the critical intelligence that led them to suspect these sites in the first place,” Netanyahu said. “That’s actually astounding.”
“Twenty-four days is more than enough time to clean up a site of all traces of illicit activity,” he said. “It’s like police giving a drug dealer three-and-a-half weeks notice before raiding his lab. You can flush a lot of nuclear meth down the toilet in 24 days.”
The deal also is likely to spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, rather than prevent one, Netanyahu said.
“The deal that was supposed to end nuclear proliferation will actually trigger nuclear proliferation,” he said. “It will trigger an arms race in the Middle East, the most volatile region on the planet. That’s a real nightmare.”
Iran also will use the billions of dollars it receives in sanctions relief to “fund its aggression in the region and its terrorism around the world,” Netanyahu warned. “As a result of this deal there will be more terrorism, there will be more attacks, and more people will die.”
If Iran uses just 10 percent of the half-a-trillion dollars it receives under the deal to fund terrorism, it “would turn any terror group sponsored by Iran into a terror superpower.”
Netanyahu went on to say that he will not remain silent, despite pressure from the White House and the deal’s supporters.
“The days when the Jewish people could not or would not speak up for themselves, those days are over,” he said. “Today we can speak out. Today we must speak out. And we must do so together.”
While the explanations of Robert Satloff and Netanyahu were elocuent and very clear there is one thing that I keep thinking about. During the first World War the US entered the war three years after the Europeans were fighting one another. A German submarine sank the Lusitania. That precipitated the US entry into World War I.
The US became part of this war on the Britain’s side. That was in 1917. The Brits own us. Comes 1939 and this time England asked again for our help. That war ended with the Holocaust and 6 million Jews dead plus another 6 million of other people exterminated by the Nazis. We left all Europe covered with the blood of American soldiers. Again, the Brits own us.
Why is everyone, specially England and France so willing to
to back Obama on this deal which is not a deal because only one side benefits plus all the Europeans willing to sell their arms and nuclear knowledge to Iran?
Our allies are against us. They just see the money they will receive at our expense. Their economies are bankrupted due to the amount of emigrants on welfare and their health systems are also bankrupt. The emigration they support have the health consequences of intermarriage among members of the same families or the same tribe.
Naturally they need our money. They need us to give $150 billions to Iran plus all what Iran will be able to make from the sale of their oil in the open market.
They are empowering Iran and they do not care. We have a president who hates America and looking at their actions they also hate us.
Does the world have become blind to what empowering Iran will do for world peace? Does anyone thinks about the survival of future generations?
What is the rational expectation when a Jew eloquently pleads with anti-Semites to refrain from facilitating another Holocaust? Netanyahu is pissing into a headwind. He has a better chance of persuading hyenas to become vegetarians.