UN, NEW YORK CITY: The international community should use “military force” if Iran develops nuclear weapons, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid told the United Nations on Thursday, as he reiterated support for creation of a “peaceful” Palestinian state.
Israel has been conducting an intense diplomatic offensive in recent months to try to convince the US and main European powers such as Britain, France and Germany not to renew the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
For the past 10 days, various officials have suggested the deal — which US then-president Donald Trump scrapped in 2018 — might not be renewed until at least mid-November, a deadline that Lapid has tried to use to push the West to impose a tougher approach in their negotiations.
“The only way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is to put a credible military threat on the table,” Lapid said in a speech at the UN General Assembly.
Only then can a “longer and stronger deal with them” be negotiated.
“It needs to be made clear to Iran that if it advances its nuclear program, the world will not respond with words, but with military force,” he added.
And he made no secret that Israel itself would be willing to engage if it felt threatened.
“We will do whatever it takes,” he said. “Iran will not get a nuclear weapon.”
From the General Assembly podium, Lapid accused Tehran’s leadership of conducting an “orchestra of hate” against Jews, and said Iran’s ideologues “hate and kill Muslims who think differently, like Salman Rushdie and Mahsa Amini,” the woman whose death after being arrested by Iran’s morality policy has triggered widespread protests there.
Israel, which considers Iran its archenemy, also blames Tehran for financing armed movements including the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas.
Despite existing “obstacles,” he said, “an agreement with the Palestinians, based on two states for two peoples, is the right thing for Israel’s security, for Israel’s economy and for the future of our children.”
Lapid, who is campaigning for November 1 legislative elections, said a large majority of Israelis support a two-state solution, “and I am one of them.”
“We have only one condition: that a future Palestinian state be peaceful,” said Lapid, whose UN speech had leaked in Israel and already was being criticized by his political rivals.
Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations have been stalled since 2014.
The Lapid government’s current strategy is to try to support the Palestinian economy, but without embarking on a peace process with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, who is scheduled to address the United Nations Friday.
Israel has occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank since 1967 and from 2007 has imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory controlled by the Islamists of Hamas.
Since 2008, Hamas and Israel have waged four wars in which the Islamic Jihad, the second-largest armed Islamist movement in Gaza, has also participated.
“Put down your weapons and prove that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not going to take over the Palestinian state you want to create,” Lapid said.
“Put down your weapons, and there will be peace.”
Israel PM Lapid: World must use ‘force’ if Iran builds nuclear bomb
https://arab.news/89ha8
Israel PM Lapid: World must use ‘force’ if Iran builds nuclear bomb
- Israel, which considers Iran its archenemy, also blames Tehran for financing armed movements including the Lebanese Hezbollah
- Lapid said large majority of Israelis support two-state solution with Palestinians
Uganda army denies seizing opposition leader as vote result looms
- Election day was marred by significant technical problems after biometric machines
- There were also reports of violence against the opposition in other parts of the country
KAMPALA: Uganda’s army denied claims on Saturday that opposition leader Bobi Wine had been abducted from his home, as counting continued in an election marred by reports of at least 10 deaths amid an Internet blackout.
President Yoweri Museveni, 81, looked set to be declared winner and extend his 40-year rule later on Saturday, with a commanding lead against Wine, a former singer turned politician.
Wine said Friday that he was under house arrest, and his party later wrote on X that he had been “forcibly taken” by an army helicopter from his compound.
The army denied that claim.
“The rumors of his so-called arrest are baseless and unfounded,” army spokesman Chris Magezi told AFP.
“They are designed to incite his supporters into acts of violence,” he added.
AFP journalists said the situation was calm outside Wine’s residence early Saturday, but they were unable to contact members of the party due to continued communications interruptions.
A nearby stall-owner, 29-year-old Prince Jerard, said he heard a drone and helicopter at the home the previous night, with a heavy security presence.
“Many people have left (the area),” he said. “We have a lot of fear.”
With more than 80 percent of votes counted on Friday, Museveni was leading on 73.7 percent to Wine’s 22.7, the Electoral Commission said.
Final results were due around 1300 GMT on Saturday.
Wine, 43, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, has emerged as the main challenger to Museveni in recent years, styling himself the “ghetto president” after the slum areas where he grew up in the capital, Kampala.
He has accused the government of “massive ballot stuffing” and attacking several of his party officials under cover of the Internet blackout, which was imposed ahead of Thursday’s polls and remained in place on Saturday.
His claims could not be independently verified, but the United Nations rights office said last week that the elections were taking place in an environment marked by “widespread repression and intimidation” against the opposition.
- Reports of violence -
Analysts have long viewed the election as a formality.
Museveni, a former guerrilla fighter who seized power in 1986, has total control over the state and security apparatus, and has ruthlessly crushed any challenger during his rule.
Election day was marred by significant technical problems after biometric machines — used to confirm voters’ identities — malfunctioned and ballot papers were undelivered for several hours in many areas.
There were reports of violence against the opposition in other parts of the country.
Muwanga Kivumbi, member of parliament for Wine’s party in the Butambala area of central Uganda, told AFP’s Nairobi office by phone that security forces had killed 10 of his campaign agents after storming his home.
