After Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's
speech in Davos, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon
Peres caution world not to fall for Iran's charm offensive • PM: Iran
must not be allowed to attain nuclear weapons capability.
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu addresses the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday
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Photo credit: AFP |
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Shortly after the latest round of Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani's charm offensive -- in the form of a speech
Rouhani gave at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on
Thursday -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres
cautioned the world not to be fooled by Iran.
"Rouhani is continuing with the Iranian show
of deception," Netanyahu said in a statement. "At a time when Rouhani
condemns the killing of innocents, dozens of innocents were recently
executed in Iran. At a time when Rouhani talks about a positive approach
to technology, he prevents Iranians from freely surfing the Internet.
"At a time when Rouhani talks about peace with
the countries of the Middle East, he refuses -- even today -- to
recognize the existence of the State of Israel, and his regime daily
calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. At a time when Rouhani
claims that Iran is not interested in a nuclear project for military
purposes, Iran continues to strengthen its centrifuges and heavy water
reactor, and to arm itself with intercontinental missiles, the sole
purpose of which is for nuclear weapons.
"Rouhani has admitted that a decade ago, he
deceived the West in order to advance the Iranian nuclear program. He is
doing this today as well.
"The goal of the Iranian ayatollahs' regime,
which is hiding behind Rouhani's smiles, is to ease sanctions without
conceding on their program to produce nuclear weapons. Therefore, the
international community must not go astray after this deception, and it
must prevent Iran from attaining the ability to produce nuclear
weapons."
At a press conference after Rouhani's speech,
Peres said, "The most significant remarks were the ones [Rouhani] didn't
make -- he didn't express support for peace in the Middle East. He is
the only leader I know who didn't say clearly the time has come to make
peace between Israel and the Arabs. He excluded the reference to peace
and when he was asked if his vision included all countries he said it
included only the ones that Iran will accept, that is some definition.
"He didn't announce that in order to reduce
the bloodshed in Syria he's going to stop sending arms and money to
Hezbollah to stop the killing, he could have announced that seeing as he
doesn't want a nuclear bomb that he will stop building long-range
missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, he didn't announce that
Iran will stop being the center of terror in our time.
"We can see [Iran's] fingers in many terrible
pies that endanger lives. As far as Israel is concerned we are ready to
make peace with the Iranian people, historically they have never been
our enemies. We extend our hand for peace, including to the Iranian
people, but today was a great occasion that was missed."
In his speech in Davos on Thursday morning,
Rouhani called for normalization between Iran and the West, even after
his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, threw cold water on the interim nuclear deal that went into effect this week.
"I hereby announce that one of the theoretical
and practical priorities of my government is constructive engagement
with the world," Rouhani said.
But when asked if Iran wanted good relations
with the entire world, Rouhani replied, "with all countries we
officially recognize," apparently excluding Israel.
After departing the auditorium, Rouhani
declined to answer questions from Israeli journalists. Later in the day,
Rouhani's guards rebuffed all attempts by Israeli journalists to get a
response from the Iranian president to Netanyahu's speech.
In a CNN interview on Thursday, Rouhani dismissed the possibility that Israel would strike Iran's nuclear facilities.
"Israel knows very well what the response
would be," Rouhani said. "Israel knows well our regional capability.
When it comes to practice, the Israelis cannot do that. If they do such a
crazy thing, our response will make them rue the day."
Also on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
told Al Arabiya that if Iran attempts to continue to enrich uranium
beyond permitted levels or break out toward a nuclear weapons capability
"then the military option that is available to the United States is
ready and prepared to do what it would have to do."
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