P.M.: Europe appeasing, not fighting, Iranian terrorism

Netanyahu took European leaders to task for “appeasing Iran,” something he said “helps the unending attack on the values and security of free societies.”

By HERB KEINON
Updated: SEPTEMBER 13, 2018 00:56
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
As the world marks 17 years since the 9/11 attacks in the United States, the time has come for Western governments to join in “the strong and clear effort by the Trump administration against the terrorist regime in Tehran,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday.
Speaking at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu took European leaders to task for “appeasing Iran,” something he said “helps the relentless assault on the values and security of free societies.”
Netanyahu again noted the irony that during the same week in June when an Iranian terrorist cell tried to carry out an attack against an Iranian opposition group in Paris – an attack that Israeli intelligence helped to thwart – European leaders were trying to “appease” Iran and looking for ways to reconcile with it, and soften the fallout from the US withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal.
Al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks, has “passed the torch” of radical Sunni terrorism on to Islamic State, while the radical Shia variety of terrorism is being led by Iran, the premier said.
“They both have the same goals: to eliminate the free societies as we know them, to eliminate Israel, and also in the end to eliminate the West and others. The time has come for the world to unite in the fight against the terrorist organizations.
It is doing so to a certain degree against Islamic State, but it is not doing so against Iran – the opposite is the case,” he said.
Netanyahu also used the start of the weekly cabinet meeting to once again praise the Trump administration for its decision on Monday to close the PLO office in Washington.
Netanyahu called this the “correct decision,” saying that at a time when the Palestinians refuse to negotiate with Israel and are attacking it with false claims in international forums, Israel “very much appreciates” American actions designed to make clear to the Palestinians that their tactics not only fail to promote peace, “but are also certainly not making things better for the Palestinians.”