In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Economics Minister Naftali Bennett said that Iran must be stopped from acquiring nuclear weapons “at all costs.”
An Iranian bomb would, without doubt, be used against the West he said.
Now is the time to prevent a nuclear 9/11," he declared, referring to the 2001 attacks by Al Qaeda against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The West, indeed, is in danger, Bennett said in the interview. “The deal we need to strive for is one that will remove from Iran its ability to manufacture nuclear weapons. Today Iran has some 18,000 centrifuges, and we want to dismantle them,” he said.
Talks in Geneva last week that are aimed at rolling back sanctions in return for an Iranian promise to lower the level of uranium enrichment are a bad idea, Bennett maintained. “Iranian is under heavy economic pressure. The worst possible result would be an Iranian nuclear weapon that would without doubt find its way to the West, endangering the lives of many.”
Regardless of what happens, Bennett said, Israel knows how to defend itself. “In 1991 we saved the world from an Iraqi bomb, and apparently the same thing happened in Syria, according to foreign reports. Israel can defend itself, and will do so if necessary.”