Netanyahu slams Iran as the ‘enemy of civilization’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decries Iran as a threat to the entire world and accuses it of seeking to inflame the Middle East.

“Iran is all of our enemy — Israel’s, the Arab world’s, and civilization’s,” Netanyahu tells foreign diplomats at an Independence Day event at the President’s Residence.

“It speaks openly — today in 2018, the 21st century — about the destruction of Israel,” he adds.

The prime minister accuses Iran of seeking regional dominance, pointing to its support for proxy groups in a number of regional countries.

“It is encircling the entire Middle East, which it wants to conquer. It fires missiles at Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. It is occupying Lebanon. It is trying to again inflame Gaza,” he says.”[Iran] is in Iraq and it is trying to establish a military base in Israel, something all the peace-seeking countries must oppose.”

Netanyahu urges the foreign diplomats to “speak against Iran.”

“If history has taught us anything, it is necessary to oppose a murderous dictatorship from its beginning,” he says.