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
UK upper house approves social media ban for under-16s
LONDON: Britain’s upper house of parliament voted Wednesday in favor of banning under?16s from using social media, raising pressure on the government to match a similar ban passed in Australia.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday he was not ruling out any options and pledged action to protect children, but his government wants to wait for the results of a consultation due this summer before legislating.
Calls have risen across the opposition and within the governing Labour party for the UK to follow Australia, where under-16s have been barred from social media applications since December 10.
The amendment from opposition Conservative lawmaker John Nash passed with 261 votes to 150 in the House of Lords, co?sponsored by a Labour and a Liberal Democrat peer.
“Tonight, peers put our children’s future first,” Nash said. “This vote begins the process of stopping the catastrophic harm that social media is inflicting on a generation.”
Before the vote, Downing Street said the government would not accept the amendment, which now goes to the Labour-controlled lower House of Commons. More than 60 Labour MPs have urged Starmer to back a ban.
Public figures including actor Hugh Grant urged the government to back the proposal, saying parents alone cannot counter social media harms.
Some child-protection groups warn a ban would create a false sense of security.
A YouGov poll in December found 74 percent of Britons supported a ban. The Online Safety Act requires secure age?verification for harmful content.
