Netanyahu took European leaders to task for “appeasing Iran,” something he said “helps the unending attack on the values and security of free societies.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)

 

As the world marks 17 years since the 9/11 attacks in the United States, the time has come for western governments to take part in “the strong and clear effort of the Trump administration against the terrorist regime in Tehran,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu took European leaders to task for “appeasing Iran,” something he said “helps the unending attack on the values and security of free societies.”

Netanyahu again noted the irony that on the same week in June that an Iranian terror cell tried to carry out an attack against an Iranian opposition group in Paris – an attack that Israeli intelligence helped to thwart – European leaders were trying to “appease” Iran and looking for ways to soften the fallout from the US withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal.

Al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks, has “passed the torch” of extremist Sunni terrorism on to Islamic State, while the extremist Shia variety of terror is being led by Iran, the premier said.

“They both have the same goals: to destroy the free societies as we know them, to destroy Israel, and also to destroy the west and others. The time has come for the world to unite in a struggle against the terrorist organizations. It did so to a certain degree in the attack against Islamic State, but has not done it against Iran – the opposite is the case,” he said.

Netanyahu also used the start of the cabinet meeting to praise the Trump Administration for its decision on Monday to close the PLO offices in Washington.

Netanyahu called this the “right decision,” saying that at a time when the Palestinians refuse to negotiate with Israel and are attacking it in international fora,  the American decision makes clear to the Palestinians that their tactics not only fail to promote peace, “but are also certainly not good for the Palestinians.”

As reported by The Jerusalem Post