Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday reiterated his doubts regarding the possibility of any deal with Iran, which he said must include the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and not just stopping uranium enrichment.
His comments came ahead of a second round of U.S.-Iranian talks in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday, and amid a major American military buildup in the region which is still underway.
“I will not hide from you that I express my skepticism of any deal with Iran, because, frankly, Iran is reliable on one thing: they lie, and they cheat,” Netanyahu said in a keynote speech to the annual gathering of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem.
In his first public address after meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington last week, the Israeli leader said that any agreement must remove all enriched nuclear material from Iran, dismantle its enrichment infrastructure, curb its ballistic-missile program and dismantle the axis of terror that Tehran has built across the region.
“There shall be no enrichment capability—not stopping the enrichment process, but dismantling the equipment and the infrastructure that allows you to enrich in the first place,” he said.
Paraphrasing Ronald Reagan’s “trust but verify” dictum regarding the Soviet Union, he advised Trump: “Distrust. Distrust, and always verify.”
Gaza
Turning to Gaza, Netanyahu said that in the second stage of Trump’s peace plan, Hamas must be disarmed of some 60,000 AK-47 assault rifles it still possesses, which, he noted, were the primary weapon used during the massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
At the same time, Israel must “complete the job” of demilitarizing Gaza by dismantling its vast network of tunnels, which the terror group built up for years across the coastal strip. About 150 kilometers (93 miles) of an estimated 500 kilometers (311 miles) of tunnels have been destroyed to date.
“We’re giving the president’s plan a chance,” said Netanyahu. “And he put it very succinctly. He said it can be done the easy way or it can be done the hard way. We hope that it will be done the easy way, because we know the ravages of war. We know what it means to lose people, we know the human cost of war, but that goal has to be achieved, one way or the other, and one way or the other, it will be achieved.”
Economy
Despite the two-year war, Netanyahu highlighted Israel’s booming economy, citing an Economist survey that found Israel had the third most vibrant economy in the OECD, and highlighting the record highs of the Israeli stock market, as well as the 30-year high the Israeli shekel has reached against the dollar.
He noted that growing ties between Israel and a string of countries across Latin America, singling out special praise for Argentina under the leadership of Javier Milei, and also noted that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was due in Israel next week to further expand burgeoning bilateral relations.
He added that Israel was a leading power in cyber technology, which has attracted vast foreign investment, and intends to reach the same heights in partnership with the United States in artificial intelligence and quantum technologies.
“Israel is a very strong country coming out of the war ... economically, militarily and technologically, and we intend to be a lot stronger,” he said.
