BICOM

Speaking to the annual meeting at Israel’s Foreign Ministry for its ambassadors posted abroad, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Iran remained the country’s major security danger.

Netanyahu said, “Iran remains the number one threat. I set a red line [for its nuclear programme], and as of now Iran has yet to cross it.” During a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in September, Netanyahu memorably illustrated a red line at which point Iran would be 90 per cent along the path to acquiring enough weapons grade uranium to construct an atomic bomb. Netanyahu yesterday reiterated “our commitment has been and remains to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.” He told the diplomats that although he expects the instability in the Middle East to continue in the short term, preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons could create a positive long-term regional change.

However, Netanyahu’s handling of the Iranian nuclear threat came in for sharp criticism by former head of the Shin Bet security agency Yuval Diskin. In an extensive weekend interview for Yediot Ahronot, Diskin took both Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak to task, saying “My colleagues and I felt unsure of Netanyahu’s and Barak’s ability to lead an effort on Iran. We didn’t trust these men’s motives. We feared that they would engage in stunts that could ensnare us as a country, for extraneous ends.” Diskin said he had the feeling “they were trying to steal something under the radar.”