JERUSALEM, June 13 (Reuters) – Iran once ridiculed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the boy who cried wolf for his constant public warnings about Tehran’s nuclear programme, and his repeated threats to shut it down, one way or another. “You can only fool some of the people so many times,” Iran’s then-foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said in 2018 after Netanyahu had once again accused Iran of planning to build nuclear weapons. On Friday, after two decades of continually raising the alarm and urging other world leaders to act, Netanyahu finally decided to go it alone, authorizing an Israeli air assault aimed, Israel says, at preventing Iran from obtaining weapons of mass destruction. In an address to the nation, Netanyahu, as he has so often before, evoked the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust in World War Two to explain his decision. “Nearly a century ago, facing the Nazis, a generation of leaders failed to act in time,” Netanyahu said, adding that a policy of appeasing Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler had led to the deaths of 6 million Jews, “a third of my people”.
“After that war, the Jewish people and the Jewish state vowed never again. Well, never again is now today. Israel has shown that we have learned the lessons of history.”
Iran says its nuclear energy programme is only for peaceful purposes, although the International Atomic Energy Agency on Thursday declared the country in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years.
Israeli military sources said the strikes disabled four of Iran’s Russian-made air-defense systems, including one positioned near Natanz, a key Iranian nuclear site that was targeted, according to Iranian television. “Iran is more exposed than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities. We have the opportunity to achieve our most important goal — to thwart and eliminate the existential threat,” Defence Minister Israel Katz said in November. But much to the consternation of Netanyahu, newly installed U.S. President Donald Trump blindsided him during a visit to the White House in April, when he announced the United States and Iran were poised to begin direct nuclear talks.
Netanyahu has locked horns with successive U.S. presidents over Iran, most noticeably Barack Obama, who approved a deal with Tehran in 2015 imposing significant restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
Trump pulled out of the accord in 2018, and Netanyahu had hoped that he would continue to take an uncompromising stance against Iran when he returned to office this year.
In announcing talks, the White House set a two-month deadline for Iran to sign a deal. Even though a fresh round of meetings was set for this weekend, the unofficial deadline expired on Thursday and Netanyahu pounced.
One Israeli official told state broadcaster Kan that Israel had coordinated with Washington ahead of the attacks and suggested recent newspaper reports of a rift between Trump and Netanyahu over Iran had been a ruse to lull the Tehran leadership into a false sense of security.
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Trump – who said after the strikes began that Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb but that he wants talks to proceed – has previously hailed the right-wing Netanyahu as a great friend. Other leaders have struggled with him.
“Generations from now, history will record that our generation stood its ground, acted in time and secured our common future. May God bless Israel. May God bless the forces of civilization, everywhere,” he said in Friday’s speech.
NN: I have nothing to add