Bennett to Present Biden with “Stop Iran” Plan

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett promised on Sunday that his upcoming visit with U.S. President Joe Biden will not be just another photo-op to promote bilateral friendship. Bennett says that he is going to Washington later this week with a specific plan to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat.

“I will tell President Biden that it is time to stop the Iranians, to stop this thing, not to give them a lifeline in the form of reentering into an expired nuclear deal,” Bennett said at the cabinet meeting on Sunday morning. “[The deal] is no longer relevant, even by the standards of those who once thought that it was.”

Bennett added that Israel has “an orderly plan that we have formulated in the past two months to curb the Iranians, both in the nuclear sphere and vis-à-vis regional aggression.”

The prime minister noted that the Iranians are “advancing rapidly with uranium enrichment and has already significantly shortened the time that it would take for them to accumulate the material required for a single nuclear bomb.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Iran reported recently that Iran has produced uranium enriched up to 20% fissile purity and increased the production capacity of uranium enriched to 60%.

While Bennett is focused on Iran, Biden may not be. A White House statement on Bennett’s visit was typically opaque, referring to discussion of “regional and global security, including Iran,” and unlike Bennett emphasized “efforts to advance peace, security, and prosperity for Israelis and Palestinians and the importance of working towards a more peaceful and secure future for the region.”