Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said repeatedly that Tehran acquiring nuclear weapons is an impermissible “red line” for Israel that it will not permit. As U.S. and Iranian government representatives began holding meetings on restricting Tehran’s nuclear program April 12, Netanyahu isn’t putting much stock in President Donald Trump’s promise that “the only thing” Tehran can’t have “is a nuclear weapon.”
Trump has made it clear what guides him in the negotiations is the economic and political interests of the capitalist rulers in the U.S. “Nobody leads us. We do what we want to do,” he said April 9 on the eve of the first negotiations.
“Israeli officials alarmed over soft U.S. stance in nuclear talks with Iran” was the headline on Ynetnews April 14.
Tehran is already enriching uranium to 60% purity, which has no purpose except as a step toward producing weapons-grade material. It is estimated that the regime could refine that uranium to produce six nuclear bombs within weeks, if it decides to do so.
Roughly half of all Jews in the world live in Israel, a country of 10 million people. Twenty percent of its population are Arabs. If even one Iranian nuclear weapon made it through Israel’s missile defenses, it would be a new Holocaust.
The heart of the current negotiations seems to be what percent uranium purity would be acceptable to the two sides — Tehran and Washington. This was the approach that led to the defunct agreement negotiated by the Barack Obama administration.
The New York Times reported Trump told Netanyahu not to carry out any actions against Iran’s nuclear facilities while the negotiations are under way.
The Israeli prime minister says that the only deal he could support would be one that ends in the verifiable physical destruction of Tehran’s centrifuges and other nuclear facilities.
“I am committed to preventing Iran from having nuclear weapons. I will not give in on this. Neither will I slacken or retreat on this, not even a millimeter,” Netanyahu emphasized in a nationally televised speech in Israel April 19.