Don't Expect Inspectors to Stop Iran Nukes, Israeli Ambassador Says
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL (Worthy News)– Ron Dermer, Israeli ambassador to the United States, said Israel cannot rely on inspections of nuclear facilities to prevent Iran from developing atomic weapons.
"The Iranian regime knows that inspectors will not stop them," Dermer said Monday in an address to the annual State of Israel Bonds banquet in Washington.
"They know if they keep their nuclear weapons-making capability intact, eventually they will develop the bomb. That is why the only thing that should be acceptable to the international community is one in which that capability is fully dismantled. Don’t count on inspectors to solve the problem for you." — Ha'aretz
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said on Tuesday that Israel fears Iran is using negotiations with world powers to buy time to become a nuclear threshold state able to produce a nuclear weapon at a moment's notice. He considered Iran as the number one threat to Israel adding the problems with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Islamic Jihad in Gaza wouldn't exist without Iranian support.
As world powers negotiate an agreement with Iran, Israel is concerned that an agreement will not go far enough.
"Any international agreement that leaves Iran on the threshold of nuclear capability is worse than no agreement at all," Yuval Steinitz, Israeli minister of strategic affairs said on Monday at the annual Herzliya Conference on Israeli security policy.
Israel is fully prepared to use to take military action against Iranian nuclear facilities as Benny Gantz, IDF Chief of Staff, said on Monday, "I am convinced that Iran must be stopped before it achieves nuclear power, which, in turn, will spark an arms race. With the help of the international community, we can make it so that Iran will never get there, be it by use of force or without use of force. Iran must not achieve nuclear power."