By Itzhak Rabihiya
European leaders must exit the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and renew international sanctions on Tehran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, comparing the regime's activities to the Nazi occupation of the Rhineland.
“Iran is brazenly violating the deal, so it's time for Europe to do what they've promised to do,” Netanyahu said during a Monday address by satellite to the Christians United for Israel summit in Washington. “They promised to leave the deal and snap back sanctions if Iran did this.”
Netanyahu's comments came hours after Iranian officials revealed they are enriching uranium at levels higher than the caps set by the 2015 accord. The illicit enrichment was a response to President Trump’s renewal of sanctions on the regime’s oil industry and nuclear program, raising the specter of Iran jump-starting its nuclear weapons program if the sanctions pressure continues.
The Israeli leader, who lobbied against the 2015 nuclear agreement throughout the negotiating process, likened the situation with Iran to the Nazi occupation of the Rhineland in 1936. “Nobody said anything, nobody did anything, and you know the continuation, you know what followed,” he told the evangelical Christians assembled in Washington.
His speech was the latest in a diplomatic push for key Western European powers to stop trying to preserve the deal and instead join Trump's effort to renew all international sanctions lifted when the agreement was implemented. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have pledged to stay in the deal if Iran remains in compliance, despite U.S. sanctions.
"We are extremely concerned at Iran's announcement that it has started uranium enrichment above the limit of 3.67%,” Maja Kocijančić, a spokeswoman for European Union top diplomat Federica Mogherini, said Monday. "We strongly urge Iran to stop and reverse all activities inconsistent with its commitments.”
The elevated enrichment of uranium follows Iran's announcement that it would amass a larger stockpile of uranium than allowed under the deal. If uranium is enriched to sufficiently high levels, it can be used to make a nuclear weapon.
"There is the 20% option, and there are options even higher than that, but each in its own place,” Iran's Atomic Energy Organization spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said Monday of uranium enrichment. “Today if our country's needs are one thing, we won't pursue something else just to scare the other side a little more. But they know it's an upward trend.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Spoke today (Monday, 8 July 2019), via satellite with Pastor John Hagee at the CUFI (Christians United for Israel) conference in Washington DC. Following is an excerpt from his remarks:
"The deal was always based on a lie: that Iran was not seeking nuclear weapons. And we exposed that lie when we sent our brave operatives to the heart of Tehran and brought back the secret atomic archive of Iran. And it just showed that they’ve been working on developing atomic bombs as early as 20 years ago.
So, the deal is not only based on a lie, it’s a terrible deal because it gave Iran a path to getting a nuclear arsenal when the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programs were removed. It didn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb; it paved it. In fact, it failed to solve the one problem it was supposed to solve. Now, it made other problems worse by removing sanctions on Iran, thereby helping Iran fuel its war machine in the region. See, when you removed the sanctions, Iran got billions and billions—tens of billions of dollars, potentially hundreds of billions of dollars – to fund its aggression.
So it’s so important that President Trump decided boldly to leave this bad deal, and he decided to restore sanctions. And Israel is deeply grateful for that, because this is vital for Israel’s security, for the security of the region, for the security of the United States, for the security of the world.
Now Iran is trying to lash out to reduce the pressure. They attack tankers, they down American drones, they’re firing missiles at their neighbors. It’s important to respond to these actions not by reducing the pressure, but by increasing the pressure.
We should stand up to Iran’s aggression now. And Europe should back the sanctions instituted by President Trump. We certainly did."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lffTxVHTO4
