Israeli Defense Minister's Warning to Iran

The Israeli Defense Minister, in a recent interview with the German newspaper Spiegel, responded to the question of whether he would recommend an airstrike on Iran's nuclear facilities if Israeli intelligence officials informed him that Iran had violated the final agreement and continued its nuclear program. Moshe Ya'alon stated, "In such a case, the matter must be discussed. Ultimately, the issue is very clear. Iran's nuclear ambitions must be stopped by any means." He added, "We cannot tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran in any way. Our preference is for this to be achieved through sanctions, but in the end, Israel must be able to defend itself." Ya'alon made these comments in an interview published on Friday, August 7. The Spiegel journalist raised the question of whether, after the nuclear agreement, we would witness the deaths of more Iranian nuclear scientists through attacks or the use of malware to threaten Iran's computer networks. The Israeli Defense Minister responded that "we must be prepared to defend ourselves. I am not responsible for the lives of Iranian nuclear scientists." Between 2010 and 2012, five individuals involved in Iran's nuclear program were assassinated; Majid Shahriari was the most prominent physicist killed; Fereydoun Abbasi Davani, who was targeted on the same day as Shahriari, survived and was later appointed head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization. Iran attributed these assassinations to Israel, but Israeli officials have largely refrained from direct responses to these accusations. Ya'alon continued his interview with Spiegel, sharply criticizing the agreement reached with Iran, stating that the negotiation method of the 1+5 group with Iran was "a historical mistake" that allows Iran to enrich uranium without restrictions after 10-12 years and become a nuclear military power. He said, "I believe that much historical research will be conducted in the future about how the nuclear agreement with Iran was reached; my feeling is that leaders in the West preferred to postpone this problem to the future; throughout history, there have been leaders who mistakenly and through appeasement thought that peace could be achieved with the enemy, but we (the Jews) have paid a very heavy price for their evasion, and this is exactly what is being repeated now regarding Iran." Ya'alon also stated that the Iranian regime should have been faced with only two options in negotiations: either the survival of your regime or a nuclear bomb, and to achieve this goal, sanctions should have reached the point of crippling Iran, and military threats should have been raised very seriously so that the Iranian regime felt genuinely threatened. Ya'alon "warned" that this agreement must also be implemented precisely by Iran. After the announcement of the agreement between Iran and the 1+5 group regarding Iran's nuclear program, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, has been making extensive efforts to reject it in the U.S. Congress, openly challenging Barack Obama, the President of the United States. In this context, Zarif's reaction to the statements of American officials regarding military options, Associated Press reported that Washington has no plans for new military assistance to Israel. The Israeli Defense Minister stated that we will not tolerate the delivery of more advanced weapons from Iran to Hezbollah. Ya'alon warned that if the Lausanne understanding is the basis for the final agreement, the likelihood of war increases.