Israeli DM Falsely Accuses Iran of Seeking Nuclear Arms

Gantz says world must unify against Iran after latest enrichment effort

Unifying the world against Iran is a go-to strategy for the Israeli government, and has been for decades. The justification is rarely credible, and oftentimes plainly false, but the efforts continue.

This week, that effort is centering on Iran’s civilian enrichment of uranium. Having gone from sub-5% enrichment to raising some portion of centrifuges to 20%, Israeli officials are declaring this as “proof” they want nuclear arms, and that the world must move against them.

Israeli DM Benny Gantz is taking the lead on this, saying the Iranian effort is threatening the region with instability. Iran told the IAEA about the 20% enrichment last week, and has begun the process this week.

Iran has been very transparent about what they’re doing and why, and make Israeli accusations and threats fall typically flat. Weapons-grade uranium is enriched to 90% or over, something Iran is not doing, and has never even attempted.

Though Israel objects to all Iranian enrichment, the lower enrichment is for the Bushehr power plant, and the 20% would be fuel rods for the US-built Tehran Research Reactor, which supplies medical isotopes for nuclear medicine.

Israel objects to that too, but neither of these things has anything to do with weapons, and doesn’t introduce any new changes to shift the world toward Israel’s way of thinking on Iran. This is, as usually, empty fear-mongering from Israel, and will only work on those already sold on being anti-Iran for its own sake.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.