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Israeli Leaders Denounce Geneva Accord Israeli Leaders Denounce Geneva Accord
(about 7 hours later)
JERUSALEM — Israeli leaders denounced the agreement reached Sunday in Geneva, saying they were not bound by it and reiterating the principle that Israel would be ready to defend itself without assistance against any threat. JERUSALEM — Having failed to stop Sunday’s signing of a nuclear deal between Iran and six Western powers despite a relentless campaign of criticism, Israeli leaders say their mission now is to ensure that, as several put it, this first step is not the last step.
After weeks of intense lobbying against any deal between the world powers and Iran that does not ensure the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called the agreement “a historic mistake,” saying in remarks that were broadcast from the start of his weekly cabinet meeting, “Today the world has become a much more dangerous place because the most dangerous regime in the world has taken a significant step toward attaining the most dangerous weapon in the world.” To influence the final deal the Obama administration and its partners in the Geneva talks intend to hammer out over the next six months, Israel will supplement its public and private diplomacy with other tools. Several officials and analysts here said Israel would unleash its intelligence industry to highlight anticipated violations of the interim agreement.
Mr. Netanyahu excoriated the world’s leading powers for agreeing to Iranian uranium enrichment for the first time and for relenting on sanctions “in exchange for cosmetic Iranian concessions that can be canceled in weeks.” At the same time, with many Israelis viewing the United States as having abandoned its credible military threat against Iran, they have stepped up talk of a strike of their own.
“Israel is not bound by this agreement,” he said. “As prime minister of Israel, I would like to make it clear: Israel will not allow Iran to develop a military nuclear capability.” Though the White House insists the deal signed Sunday is an interim move intended only to buy time to negotiate an agreement that would prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, Israel is deeply worried that there will be little further progress. The sanctions relief in the interim accord relieves the pressure that brought Iran to the table, Israeli officials argue, so Iranian leaders might not stay. Further, they say, the so-called P5 + 1 nations that negotiated the pact have not agreed on or clearly identified their final goals, nor outlined the parameters for punitive measures if progress is not made within the deadline.
The foreign minister of Israel, Avidgor Lieberman, told Israel Radio that “Israel will have to make a reassessment” and that “all the options are on the table.” “The focus has to be on what happens at the end of those six months,” said Naftali Bennett, Israel’s economy minister and a member of its inner security cabinet. “A, define what our objective is, and B, define now, in advance, as soon as possible, what happens if we don’t meet those objectives,” he said. “If it’s just some open-ended vague negotiations, it’s pretty clear that Iran will retain its nuclear program and revive its economy — the worst-case scenario.”
“We are talking about the greatest diplomatic achievement for the Iranians,” he said. “We have to take our decision in a cleareyed, independent manner, and we have to be serious enough to be responsible for our fate. Responsibility for the fate of the Jewish people and for the state of Israel lies with the Israeli government alone.” Amos Yadlin, director of the Institute of National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said that much of the vitriol of the last few weeks was misplaced and that a shift in strategy was overdue. “They call it the deal, the deal, the deal — they should call it the initial deal that leads either to an acceptable deal or to the failure of the deal,” he said. “Then Israel should be ready, if sanctions will not be ratcheted, to go to the option that we try to avoid all the time.”
The Israeli minister of strategic affairs, intelligence and international relations, Yuval Steinitz, said that “like the failed agreement with North Korea, this agreement is likely to bring Iran closer to obtaining the bomb.” For now, Israel is expected to continue its denunciation of the agreement. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared it a “historic mistake” on Sunday, while some of his top ministers deemed it “a surrender” and “the greatest diplomatic achievement for the Iranians.”
“Israel cannot take part in the international celebration, which is based on Iranian duplicity and self-deception,” he said. But the reality is that the weeks of harsh and personal condemnations leading up to the agreement on Saturday left Israel sidelined in the Geneva process, and its relations with Washington under severe strain.
One Israeli minister even warned that the pact could result in a nuclear attack against the West. “If five years from now a nuclear suitcase explodes in New York or Madrid, it will be because of the deal that was signed this morning,” the economic minister, Naftali Bennett, said in a statement. With its ability to influence the deal through diplomatic channels accordingly limited, Israel will now deploy its intelligence resources to monitor the process.
Israeli outrage may have been fueled by the government’s sense of not having been kept fully in the loop by the Obama administration. Another minister, Silvan Shalom, was asked on Israel Radio if Israeli officials had been informed about the secret American-Iranian talks held over the past few months in Oman, as reported by The Associated Press early Sunday. Among the expected areas of scrutiny will be whether construction at the heavy-water reactor in Arak is halted as demanded in the interim deal; whether Iran installs new centrifuges or uses its advanced ones in violation of the agreement; how the Obama administration enforces the remaining sanctions; and the seriousness of the promised increased inspections.
“It is not important whether or not we were informed,” Mr. Shalom said. “What is important is if we knew of it, and we did know.” “Israeli intelligence will be required to make a double effort,” Ron Ben-Yishai, an analyst for the Israeli news site Ynet, wrote Sunday. “Ensure that Iran is not deceiving,” he explained, “and that the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors are not cutting corners.”
President Shimon Peres of Israel issued a statement saying that “the success or failure of the deal will be judged by results, not by words,” and he called on the Iranians “to reject terrorism” and to stop the nuclear program and the development of long-range missiles. Jonathan Spyer, a senior research fellow at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, predicted a “carefully timed injection of intelligence-derived information into the public space” to put pressure on the talks.
“Israel, like others in the international community, prefers a diplomatic solution,” Mr. Peres said. “But I want to remind everyone of what President Obama said, and what I have personally heard from other leaders: The international community will not tolerate a nuclear Iran. And if the diplomatic path fails, the nuclear option will be prevented by other means. The alternative is far worse.” While most experts here said they could not imagine Israeli military action while the Geneva negotiations are underway, officials from Mr. Netanyahu on down were already raising the specter of a potential Israeli military strike on Iran. Mr. Netanyahu on Sunday repeated his mantra that “Israel has the right and the obligation to defend itself, by itself, against any threat.” Mr. Bennett added, for good measure, that Israel “is capable of defending itself.”
In the past, Mr. Peres has spoken out against the prospect of a lone Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and has expressed confidence in the Obama administration’s commitment to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. While Mr. Peres’s role as president is largely ceremonial, he is widely respected as an elder statesman and, often, as a voice of moderation. Indeed, Yaakov Amidror, who until last month was Israel’s national security adviser, told the Financial Times last week that Israel’s air force had been conducting “very long-range flights” to prepare for an attack on Iran, and that there was “no question” that Mr. Netanyahu was prepared to make the decision to strike if necessary. Mr. Amidror also said Israel’s military could stop Tehran’s nuclear program “for a very long time.”
Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University, published a paper on Thursday describing an Israeli strike as “complex, but possible.” He said the number of facilities that would have to be hit to “deal a significant blow to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is generally overestimated” and that Iran’s ability to retaliate “is quite limited.” Arab states whose airspace Israel would need to fly over, Professor Inbar added, “would turn a blind eye or even cooperate” because of their own concerns over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“At a time when appeasing Iran seems to be in vogue, an Israeli strike could invigorate elements in the international arena who are unwilling to accept an Iran with a nuclear breakout capability,” he wrote. “In addition, many people around the world would be reminded that muscular reactions to evil regimes are often truly necessary.”
There has been near-unanimity among Israeli leaders across the political spectrum that the interim deal was a major setback. There is mounting division, though, on whether the public prosecution of the case put too much stress on Jerusalem’s all-important relationship with Washington or only highlighted its diminishment.
One radio host on Sunday repeatedly played clips of President Obama, during his visit here in March, reassuring Israelis, in Hebrew, that “you are not alone,” and then said ominously, “We are in fact alone.” Mr. Spyer, the Herzliya analyst, described the communication between the White House and the prime minister’s office in recent weeks as “a dialogue of the deaf” that revealed a growing gulf in approach to Middle East policy in Iran and beyond.
But Tzipi Livni and Yair Lapid, two centrist ministers in Mr. Netanyahu’s cabinet, both called Sunday for better cooperation with the United States and a quieter, more dignified diplomacy campaign in the days ahead.
“We’ve lost the world’s ear,” lamented Mr. Lapid, the finance minister and head of Parliament’s second-largest faction. “We have six months, at the end of which we need to be in a situation in which the Americans listen to us the way they used to listen to us in the past.”

Isabel Kershner contributed reporting.