Netanyahu says Trump informed ahead of attacks on Iran
Talking to Fox News, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu says he informed US President Donald Trump ahead of launching the military campaign on Iran.
He described the cooperation with the current US administration as “unprecedented”, adding that the Israeli intelligence shares “every bit of information” with Washington.
Netanyahu added that regime change in Iran could be a result of Israel’s military attacks. “The issue here is not de-escalation, the issue here is not ceasefire, the issue here is stopping [Iran],” he said, describing the country as a “mortal threat” for Israel as well as Gulf states, the US and Europe.
‘Israel looking for greater US military involvement in Iran’
Meron Rapoport, editor of Israeli news outlet Local Call, says, “It is important for Netanyahu, when he speaks to the international media, to present himself as the leader who is saving the Western world from the evilness of Iran”.
Rapoport was commenting after the Israeli PM’s interview with Fox News from an undisclosed location.
Rapoport added that Netanyahu was not looking for Trump “to bring peace, but more war” through US military involvement. “Some Iranian nuclear facilities are deep in the ground and only the US [can hit them], and I think this is what Netanyahu is looking for,” he said.
Was Iran months away from producing a nuclear bomb?
Israeli officials have argued that the ongoing military operation against Iran was necessary as the country was months away from producing a nuclear weapon.
Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said Israel has no credible evidence to sustain its claim, which the US also knows to be inaccurate.
“Netanyahu played into the same theatre of deception that was played before the war on Iraq in 2003,” he said.
In March, the United States’ Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the US Congress that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon and that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei did not authorise the nuclear weapons programme that he suspended in 2003.
Bishara said Netanyahu’s interview with Fox News was reminiscent of a speech given by former US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in reference to Iraq’s purported possession of weapons of mass destruction.
The claim that Iraq was actively building nuclear weapons prior to the 2003 US-led invasion was debunked.
