Netanyahu says Iran will not get hands on nukes

by Infidelesto on January 31, 2009 · View Comments

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One of my favorite people on the planet right now.  Bibi gets it, and Iran better watch out. If only we had a leader in the US like him.

MIDEAST ISRAEL PALESTINIANS

International Herald Tribue

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s leading candidate for prime minister, said Saturday that Iran “will not be armed with a nuclear weapon.”

In an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 TV, Netanyahu said if elected prime minister his first mission will be to thwart the Iranian nuclear threat. Netanyahu, the current opposition leader and head of the hardline Likud party, called Iran the greatest danger to Israel and to all humanity.

When asked if stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions included a military strike, he replied: “It includes everything that is necessary to make this statement come true.”

Iran says it is seeking nuclear power for peaceful purposes and not for a weapons program.

The Channel 2 TV broadcast interviewed all three candidates for prime minister ahead of the Feb. 10 election. The three did not debate each other and appeared one after the other to answer questions posted by Israelis in YouTube videos.

Tzipi Livni of Kadima and Ehud Barak of Labor were both asked about how they intended to deal with the continuing rocket threat from Hamas militants in Gaza. Both took a hard line.

“Hamas was hit like it was never hit before,” Barak, the defense minister, said. “If they try us again, they will be hit again.”

Israeli launched a massive three-week offensive against Gaza militants on Dec. 27 to stop eight years of near-daily militant rocket fire at southern Israeli towns. Nearly 1,300 Palestinians were killed in the fighting, about half of them civilians, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. Thirteen Israelis were also killed, three of them civilians.

Livni, the foreign minister, said if Hamas “hasn’t gotten the message yet” Israel would strike it again.

Regardless, she said Hamas could not be negotiated with and called on the people of Gaza to overthrow their regime.

“I do not intend to reach any agreements with Hamas. Agreements I make with people who accept my existence,” she said. “They do not recognize Israel and do not renounce violence and terrorism. They will not be a party to an agreement and therefore the people of Gaza have to expel the Hamas from within them.”

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  • Beej

    Let us hope Netanyahu is elected again. I wonder how the world's press is reacting to his determination to deny Iran nuclear weapons. Hmm …….. let me guess ………

  • Walter Lane

    Bibi is the man. It's his type of attitude that will see Israel through the current century.

  • johnrj08

    Netanyahu isn't going to do anything without consent from Washington. The U.S. gives Israel $25,000,000 a day in aid, not to mention the implied backing of a super-power. We can only hope that the U.S. has given Israel the greenlight to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. I can't imagine a worse catastrophe for the world than Tehran having a nuclear arsenal. The leaders of that country are inviting disaster upon their own people.

  • Michael

    Netanyahu is a war monger, and will not, like his enemies be content to see either of them live in peace. It takes two to tango and these two are made for one another, the slaughter of the children guaranteed that Israel will never have peace.
    As long as they continue to kill, with the money and weapons provided by the US, Israel will be forever condemned to live in fear. There is an 'easier' way to take out the 'bad guys' in Hamas but Israel chooses to wipe out the ' concentration camps' the Palestinians call 'home'. The world has witnessed man's inhumanity to man once again.
    Its amazing when one looks at the cosmos and sees the billions of planets and galaxies out there, we are just 'fleas' of the Universe. Look at the damage that we 'flea's' have inflicted on one another.

  • Beej

    Michael, there is truth in what you say concerning your view of the future, but history shows that since 1947, the time of the UN vote for Partition, Israel has had to face the reality that it daily lives on the brink. Israelis do not want war and bloodshed. Why would they? But they must constantly live in a state of readiness and deal with the threats against them. Netanyau is not a warmonger, but a man determined to take the necessary steps in the face of hostility. In the 1930s Winston Churchill was the lone voice warning of the dangers posed by the growing military strength of Germany, but he was ignored and called a warmonger. It's a fascinating exercise to contemplate what might have happened had Britain heeded his warnings and undergone re-armament that kept pace with Germany's. I am not entirely a fan of Churchill's – far from it – but he was one "warmonger" for whom the world may be eternally grateful. You refer to America's financial support of Israel, a fact which prompts me to wonder why the oil-rich and fabulously wealthy Arab states do not pump money into the Palestinian coffers to alleviate their harsh living conditions. Perhaps I am a cynic, but I have a sneaky feeling that the rest of the Arab world wants to maintain the squalid conditions so that the world might muster support for the "downtrodden" Palestinians, thereby viewing Islam as the poor little whipping boy.

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