Jerusalem, July 13: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected criticism about Israel’s past failure to curb the Iranian nuclear activities, saying Israel never dallied on the issue.
“The prime minister is not willing to discuss directly the way in which Israel governments have dealt with the Iranian threat neither in the past nor at the present,” Netanyahu’s bureau said in a statement, referring to comments made by his senior aide in an interview with Haaretz.
Israel’s National Security Advisor Uzi Arad on Friday admitted that the regime has had no success in hindering Iran’s nuclear progress.
Israel displayed an “abominable” failure to address Tehran’s nuclear development between 2003 and 2007, added Arad who is said to be an influential figure in the hawkish Israeli government.
The head of Israel’s National Security Council also suggested threatening the Islamic Republic with a naval blockade in a change to the “scorched earth” policy that Netanyahu inherited from the previous administration.
“The more credible and concrete the option, the less likely that it will be needed,” Arad said, reiterating that “living with” a nuclear Iran, as the West has done with the Soviet Union and China, was not an option for Israel.
The statement by Netanyahu’s bureau said, “However, the prime minister knows that the subject of Iran has topped the agenda of every Israeli government.”
“[Netanyahu] appreciates the important contributions they have made on this matter over the years, particularly those made by [Mossad chief] Meir Dagan.”
Israel, the possessor of the sole nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, accuses Iran of pursuing a military nuclear program.
Despite its sizeable arsenal of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, Tel Aviv is bent on portraying Iran as the real threat to the region, while many Middle Eastern countries throw that assertion back at Israel.
Iran has always argued that it is a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has willingly opened its atomic activities to the most stringent supervision of UN nuclear watchdog inspectors, according to the terms of the NPT. Israel has not signed the NPT and has snubbed its nose to international bodies.
Tehran also denies having any intentions of acquiring nuclear weapons, while staying adamant that it will continue to defend its ‘inalienable right’ to pursue uranium enrichment for civilian applications no matter how hard that may be for Israel and its Western allies to accept.
——Agencies