Netanyahu Reveals Trump Knew in Advance of Israel’s Iran Archive Mission

YERUSHALAYIM (Reuters/Hamodia) —
President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the U.N., September 26, 2018. (Avi Ohayon/GPO)

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu revealed on Tuesday that he informed U.S. President Donald Trump in advance of the Mossad operation in Tehran last year to capture a secret Iranian nuclear archive.

Netanyahu said in April 2018 that Mossad agents had spirited thousands of hidden documents out of Tehran which proved Iran had previously pursued a nuclear weapons program. Trump cited the Israeli findings in his decision, a month later, to quit a 2015 deal that had scaled down Iran’s nuclear project.

Iran denies ever seeking nuclear weapons and has accused Israel of faking the Tehran mission and documents trove.

Awarding an Israeli national security prize on Tuesday to the Mossad team credited with the so-called “Atomic Archive” capture, Netanyahu said he had discussed the planned operation with Trump when they met at the Davos forum in January 2018.

“He asked me if it was dangerous,” recalled Netanyahu in his speech to the intelligence agents, including several who participated in the mission, which drew laughter from the gathering, according to The Jerusalem Post.

“I told him that there was a danger to it that was not negligible, but that the outcome justified the risk,” Netanyahu said at the closed-door ceremony, according to a transcript issued by his office.

Netanyahu said that, when he later presented main findings from an Israeli analysis of the documents to Trump at the White House, the president “voiced his appreciation for the boldness.”

“I have no doubt that this helped to validate his decision to withdraw from this dangerous (Iran nuclear) deal,” he said.

Six Mossad officers – four men and two women – received Tuesday’s prize for leading the mission, which also involved “hundreds” of others, the intelligence agency’s director, Yossi Cohen, told an international security forum this week.

To Read The Full Story

Are you already a subscriber?
Click to log in!