Netanyahu: Bad Iran Deal Won’t Obligate Us

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu‏‏ warned on Wednesday night that Israel will go its own way if necessary to defend itself against the threat from Iran made more dangerous by a renewal of the nuclear deal.

“A deal with Iran that threatens us with annihilation will not obligate us,” Netanyahu said in a speech at Yad Vashem for Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“Unlike in the past, today there is no one in the world that will deprive us of the right and the might to defend ourselves from an existential threat,” he said. “The nuclear deal with Iran is once again on the table. Such deals with extreme regimes are worthless.

“I say to our closest friends too: ‘A deal with Iran that paves Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon, a weapon that threatens us with annihilation, will not obligate us.’ Only one thing will obligate us: to prevent those who wish to destroy us from carrying out their plans.”

The remarks come amid reports earlier in the work that the U.S. was holding indirect talks with Tehran about reentering the nuclear agreement.

Netanyahu also took aim at the International Criminal Court’s “outrageous” decision to investigate Israel for alleged war crimes against Palestinians. The Jewish people were defenseless in the face of the Nazis but are no longer so, and have every right to defend themselves from their enemies, he said.

He aid the ICC was formed in the image of the courts of the Nuremberg trials that brought Nazis to justice. But “from Nurenberg to The Hague things were turned upside down. A body formed to defend human rights has become a body that in actuality defends those who trample on human rights.”