Netanyahu: ‘We have to act now against Iran’
Israel won’t allow Iran to establish a base in Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday as he called on the world to halt Iran’s development of missiles and nuclear power, and its support of terror.
“We have to stop Iran now,” he said at the Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference. To the diplomats in the audience, he added: “I ask that you act now.”
His comments come the same week that Israeli forces allegedly carried out two air strikes against Syria, one on an Iranian military base.
“We will not let them establish themselves in Syria,” Netanyahu said. “We say what we mean and we mean what we say.”
During his short talk, he did not address US President Donald Trump’s pending recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Instead, he used the stage to talk about Iran, urging the diplomats in the room to send a “cable” to their governments to put more pressure on Iran with regard to human rights and nuclear safeguards.
“If Iran continues unabated, they will have a nuclear arsenal of 100 bombs and more. Within a decade they’ll have a capacity to enrich uranium on a vast scale and break out not to one bomb, but to 100 bombs,” he said.
Tehran is also developing an intercontinental ballistic missile with global reach. He pointed to a map of the world with countries under Iranian influence marked to show how it was slowly taking over the region, creating a “land bridge” reaching to the Mediterranean Sea.
“Iran is trying to build an empire – Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, from Yemen to Gaza – ultimately they want to conquer the Middle East,” Netanyahu said.
Hamas and Hezbollah would “not last a day without Iran,” Netanyahu said.