Former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman, who currently heads the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said Saturday that there’s not even a “quarter of a sign” that Iran has slowed its drive to acquire nuclear weapons.
“All international intelligence agencies are aware that nothing has changed,” he was quoted by Israel Radio saying. “Israel is prepared to deal with the Iranian problem. Even if we stand alone. It’s better to be alone and stay alive rather than toe the line and go up in flames,” he added.
The Yisrael Beytenu leader recalled that the entire international community protested when Israel, acting alone, destroyed Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor at Osiraq in 1981. Now, he said, the world recognizes that “we were right… The whole world would have paid the price” if Israel had not intervened.
Liberman was echoing several statements made by Israeli leaders recently — including Prime Minister Netanyahu, Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz, Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin and Likud MK Tzachi Hanegbi — warning that Israel was ready to act alone to defend itself, and intimating that Israel was concerned that the US might be duped by Iran’s current charm offensive into cutting a negotiated deal that would not block Iran’s route to the bomb.
Source: timesofisrael
