Netanyahu says any deal with Iran must see all its nuclear infrastructure ‘dismantled’

A nuclear deal with Iran must remove its ability to enrich uranium, says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Jewish News Syndicate policy conference in Jerusalem, as the US engages in direct nuclear talks with Tehran.

“A real deal that works is one that removes Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons,” he says.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that Washington seeks a deal that would prevent Iran from enriching any uranium, while his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi called the issue of enrichment “non-negotiable.”

“Dismantle all the infrastructure of Iran’s nuclear program,” says Netanyahu. “That is a deal we can live with.”

If the two sides agree on more lenient deal, says Netanyahu, Iran will simply run out the clock and wait for the end of Donald Trump’s term.

He also says that Iran’s ballistic missile production must be part of the talks as well.

“The question of defense capacities and the country’s missiles is not [on the agenda] and has not been raised in the indirect talks,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said after the latest round of talks on Saturday.

Netanyahu says he has stressed this position to Trump, and that he is in close contact with the US.

“A bad deal is worse than no deal,” he argues, repeating his position that the “only good deal” would be one modeled on the deal that Libya agreed to in 2003.

The prime minister claims that Israeli covert action over the years has set Iran’s nuclear program back a decade.

Turning to the war in Gaza, Netanyahu says that at the end of the fighting, “Hamas will not be there. And were not going to put the Palestinian Authority there.”

“Why replace one regime that is sworn to our destruction with another regime that is sworn to our destruction?” he asks.

Expanding on his position that the PA is no better than Hamas, Netanyahu argues that “Hamas says we will destroy Israel by terror and military conquest right away, and the PA says, ‘No, you destroy it politically and driving it through propaganda and lawfare to the ’67 boundaries, and then you can do the military thrust because you’re a few kilometers from the sea.'”

The idea of creating a Palestinian state to foster peace is “folly,” he says.

Netanyahu indicates that he did not trust the Biden administration with Israeli military secrets.

He says he refused to tell Washington ahead of the September 2024 beeper operation against Hezbollah: “I don’t read the New York Times that often, but why give them the advance? It would be on the net.”

He reveals that Israel bombed the scanning machine that Iran sent to Lebanon once Hezbollah suspected that its beepers were booby-trapped. However, once three pagers were sent to Iran to be checked, he decided to act.

He also says that Israel stopped Iranian airborne troops from reaching Syria to protect Bashar al-Assad in December as rebels captured Damascus.

In addition to Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, Israel is also fighting another front, he says – the “deep state.” He says the entrenched left-wing bureaucrats threaten Israel’s democracy, a line Netanyahu has used repeatedly since Trump, who has made similar claims about the US, returned to office.