Netanyahu: Iran's uranium enrichment steps are like those Nazis took in 1930
This enrichment, the prime minister said, “is for only one thing – to prepare nuclear weapons.”
By HERB KEINONPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Iran at the weekly cabinet meeting(photo credit: OHAD TZVEIGENBERG)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called Iran's decision to upgrade its uranium enrichment beyond the limits set by the 2015 nuclear deal a “dangerous step,” likening it to the “small steps” the Nazis took in the 1930s that the world did not respond to, and which only whet their appetite for more.Speaking at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said that he read an article in The Washington Post explaining that Iran's decision to go beyond the limit of 3.67% uranium enrichment was “not terrible, because it is just a “small step.”This type of thinking, Netanyahu declared, is a “mistake.”This enrichment, he said, “is for only one thing – to prepare nuclear weapons.”World War II began in Europe, he said, “when Nazi Germany took one small step - to enter the Rhineland [in 1936]. A small step. No one said anything and no one did anything. The next step was the Anschluss, the connection with Austria [annexation of Austria in March 1938], and the next step was entering the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia [October 1938]. And the rest is known.”Iran's decision is a “very dangerous step,” he said. “I call on my friends, the heads of France, Britain and Germany: You signed this [nuclear] agreement [with Iran], and you said that once they take this step, there will be harsh sanctions. That was the decision of the Security Council. Where are you?”Netanyahu said he was not asking this question in a defiant manner, but rather “with the common knowledge of history, and [a knowledge of] what happens when aggressive totalitarian regimes cross the line, on the way to things that are very dangerous to all of us. Take the actions you promised to take; impose the sanctions.”For its part, Netanyahu said, Israel is doing what it must, “constantly working against Iranian aggression.” Israel, he said, is not allowing Iran to entrench itself in Syria, and is acting to “nip this in the bud” – the same thing Israel is now asking Europe to do regarding the Iranian decision to enrich uranium at a higher level.
