Netanyahu Says Iran Nukes, Islamic State Twin 'Militant' Threat
Israel's Prime Minister Warns Focus on Iran Nukes Blurred by Islamic State
NEW YORK—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said defeating Islamic State but allowing Iran to move to the brink of nuclear weapons would be to "lose the war" against what he called "militant Islam."
Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly, Mr. Netanyahu equated the Sunni extremist Islamic State group with Hamas, Boko Haram in Nigeria, the Iranian regime and al Qaeda. He argued there was a growing threat that came from Shiite as well as Sunni movements in the Middle East and beyond.
"The Islamic Republic is now trying to bamboozle its way to an agreement that will remove the sanctions it still faces and leave it with a capacity of thousands of…centrifuges to enrich uranium. This would effectively cement Iran's place as a threshold, military nuclear power," he said.
"Make no mistake ISIS must be defeated," he said, using the acronym for one of Islamic State's former names. "But to defeat ISIS and leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power is to win the battle but to lose the war."
Iran is negotiating a comprehensive nuclear agreement with six powers, which would see Tehran agree to concrete steps to constrain its nuclear activities in exchange for a phased lifting of sanctions. The deadline for those talks, which continued in New York this month, is November 24.
Iran, which has been supporting the Assad regime and the Iraqi government in their fight against Islamic State, denies it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
The six power group—the U.S., Germany, France, the U.K., Russia and China—have already accepted that Tehran should have some kind of future enrichment program. In recent weeks, they have floated "creative" solutions to Iran, according to western diplomats, which could leave some of Iran's centrifuges in place but remove the infrastructure that makes them work.
U.S. officials have insisted any agreement must significantly lengthen the time it would take Iran to obtain enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon. Israel has long demanded a solution that would leave Iran with no enrichment capacity and without the infrastructure of a nuclear program.
Mr. Netanyahu said the international community isn't to be "fooled by Iran's manipulative charm offensive."
"Once Iran produces atomic bombs, all the charms and all the smiles will suddenly disappear. And it's then that the Ayatollahs will show their true face," he said. "There's only one responsible course of action to address this threat: Iran's nuclear capabilities must be fully dismantled," he said.
With peace negotiations with the Palestinians moth balled since the breakdown of U.S. mediated talks in May, Mr. Netanyahu suggested that pushing rapprochement between Israel and pro-Western Arab states could serve as a new paradigm to advance what he said could be a "historic compromise" with the Palestinians.
"Many have long assumed that an Israeli Palestinian peace would facilitate a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world. But these days I think it may work the other way around,'' Mr. Netanyahu said.
"Namely that a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world may help facilitate an Israeli Palestinian peace. And that in order to achieve that peace, we must not only look to Jerusalem and Ramallah, but to Cairo, Amman, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh and elsewhere."
The overture to the Arab world echoed Mr. Netanyahu's remarks during Israel's war with Hamas that the conflict had opened new possibilities for cooperation and even a "diplomatic horizon" with other countries in the region opposed to the Islamic militant rules of Gaza.
However, such a development would require Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to depart from their long-standing practice of shunning open normalization of ties with Israel before progress is made with the Palestinians. Egypt was the only Arab state to make peace with Israeli with no progress on Israeli Palestinian ties.
Mr. Netanyahu's proposal to overhaul Israeli-Arab peacemaking efforts mirrors an initiative for a peacemaking overhaul by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who, during an address to the general assembly on Friday, called on the Security Council to impose a deadline for talks on the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza—an effort to pressure Israel on withdrawal through international pressure and a step away from U.S.-led mediation.
Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee Member Hanan Ashrawi said Mr. Netanyahu's outreach to Arab countries was an effort to sidestep the need for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. Ms. Ashrawi added such a move would mean "buying more time to create facts that will destroy the chances of peace for the foreseeable future."
On Friday, Mr. Abbas delivered a strongly worded speech at the U.N. General Assembly, accusing Israel of waging a "war of genocide" in Gaza. He said Israel had committed war crimes during the seven-week conflict and warned that without a clear timeline for talks in place, there was little point in resuming peace talks.
A U.S. State Department spokeswoman said Mr. Abbas' remarks were "counterproductive" and included "offensive characterizations" of Israel.
The remarks outraged Israelis and prompted many of Mr. Netanyahu's allies to rule him out as a partner for a peace deal. Netanyahu's comments were calibrated to address negative sentiment toward the Palestinian leader at home while also trying to show the international community that Israel would still look for peace, said Oded Eran, a former Ambassador to Jordan.
Mr. Netanyahu suggested cooperation between Israel and Arab states on security and infrastructure—an echo of the more optimistic years of Israel Palestinian peace making—but Mr. Eran said the Arab states were unlikely to take him up on his offer.
"The prime minister is correct in his assessment that there is some sort of commonality of interests which is based on fear: one fear from the Islamist extremists movements like the Nusra Front, and ISIS, the other fear is Iran. These are common concerns of several Arab regimes and Israel. But that is not sufficient for open cooperation,'' said Mr. Eran.
"He is obviously trying to reverse the logical order which was accepted until recently, or that still prevails and say we have common threat, let's make it lead to a peace between us and the Palestinians. My assessment is that it's overly optimistic."