New Israeli PM Bennett vows to fight Iran nuclear deal
COALITION LEADER TELLS FIRST CABINET COUNTRY ‘AT OUTSET OF NEW DAYS’
Israel’s new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said last night that renewing the international nuclear deal with Iran will be a mistake. In a speech to parliament before the vote that thrust him to power, Bennett said that Israel remains ready to act against Iran. “Israel will not allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons,” Bennett said. “Israel will not be a party to the agreement and will continue to preserve full freedom of action.”
The strong comments maintain the confrontational policy by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Nonetheless, Bennett thanked US President Joe Biden for supporting Israel over the decades.
Netanyahu’s record 12-year run as Israel’s prime minister ended yesterday with parliament approving a new “government of change” led by Bennett, an improbable scenario few Israelis could have imagined. Addressing parliament before Bennett was sworn in, a combative Netanyahu said: “If we are destined to go into the opposition, we will do so with our heads held high until we can topple it.” That will happen, he added, “sooner than people think”.
Bennett, Israel’s first Orthodox Jewish prime minister, opened the first meeting of his government last night with a traditional blessing for new beginnings. Bennett addressed the newly sworn in Cabinet,
If we are destined to go into the opposition, we will do so with our heads held high until we can topple it.”
Benjamin Netanyahu | Outgoing PM
We stopped the train before the abyss. The time has come for different leaders, from all parts of the people, to stop this madness.
Naftali Bennett | New Israeli PM
saying the country is “at the outset of new days”.
“Citizens of Israel are all looking to us now, and the burden of proof is upon us,” he said. “We must all, for this amazing process to succeed, we must all know to maintain restraint on ideological matters.”
President Mahmoud Abbas of Palestine had little to say about Israel’s new government. His spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh said the Palestinian position remains “adherence to international legitimacy and the twostate solution by establishing an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital”.