While the eyes of the world are turned to New York in anticipation and hope for the start of a reconciliation between the United States and Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opted to open the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on Sept. 17 with an aggressive statement toward Iran. In the presence of the reporters and photographers who are invited to cover the first few minutes of cabinet meetings, Netanyahu said that in the speech he plans to deliver at the UN General Assembly in New York, and in his meeting with US President Barack Obama, he will focus on the issue of stopping Iran’s nuclear program. “A rogue state which develops or takes up weapons of mass destruction is certainly likely to use it,” Netanyahu said, adding with bluster: “Only a credible military threat can enable diplomatic processes or other moves to stop this arming.”
The prime minister was not satisfied with this routine message regarding the Iranian threat. In what sounds like veiled criticism of the international community’s “laxness,” Netanyahu laid out four “essential steps” needed to stop the nuclear project: a halt to all uranium enrichment; removal of all enriched uranium from Iran; closure of the facility at Qom and a halt to plutonium production. He ended his words with the overused mantra: “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?” [Hillel the elder, Avot 1:14]
