Amos Gilead: History will judge Netanyahu harshly for his failures on Iran

Amos Gilead, the former director of the Political-Military Affairs Bureau at the Defense Ministry, tells the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations meeting in Jerusalem that “history will judge [former prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu harshly” for his handling of Iran’s drive to nuclear weapons.

Netanyahu’s high-profile efforts to dissuade the US from signing the 2015 nuclear deal failed, says Gilead, and “we are now facing an Iran that can cross the Rubicon, and develop a nuclear weapon that might be an existential threat to Israel.”

Israel’s contribution to the US withdrawing from the deal under the Trump administration was a major misstep, he adds. “You don’t cancel international agreements,” says Gilead, “if you don’t have an alternative” to put in place instead.

Gilead also accuses Netanyahu of having “destroyed” Israel as a bipartisan cause in the US by siding so strongly with the Trump administration.