Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told lawmakers in a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday the nuclear deal between world powers and Iran is going from a “bad agreement to a worse agreement.”
In his remarks at the start of the meeting, Netanyahu said he was “not impressed by the potholes in the nuclear talks.” To his regret, rather, he said, “What we are seeing are Iran’s increasing demands and the major powers’ concessions which are also increasing, in keeping with the Iranian pressure.
“This agreement is going from a bad agreement to a worse agreement, and is becoming worse by the day. In effect, it is paving Iran’s way to being not only a major power with one or two nuclear bombs, but with an unlimited arsenal within a decade with the possibility of achieving several atomic bombs beforehand, by violating the monitoring which, in any case, is full of holes.
“Above all, in addition to this, the agreement also gives Iran many billions of dollars, apparently hundreds of billions of dollars, within a short time,” he warned.
Such an enormous amount of funding will allow Iran to finance its increasing aggression, Netanyahu pointed out. The first goal, he said, would be to fund “the murderous stranglehold it is using around the State of Israel,” but he also noted there are “other parts of the Middle East that are subject to its aggression, such as Yemen, Iraq and many other places.
“Therefore, there is both a conventional threat and a non-conventional threat, which in my view will heighten the nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
“For all of these reasons, this is a bad agreement. I appreciate the fact that there is a broad consensus within the State of Israel against this agreement,” the prime minister said.
“There are also increasing voices in the West against this agreement; they understand the significance its implementation would have on global security, theirs as well. But, as has been said, this debate is still taking place. I think it is important that Israel’s voice be heard, along with that of many others,” Netanyahu added.