Iran Says Netanyahu Threatened Nuclear Attack in UN Speech

Netanyahu said Iran must face a 'credible nuclear threat,' but his office said he misspoke and meant to say 'military threat'

Iran has lodged a formal complaint to the UN accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of threatening a nuclear attack on the Islamic Republic.

In his speech at the UN General Assembly last week, Netanyahu said, “Above all — above all — Iran must face a credible nuclear threat. As long as I’m prime minister of Israel, I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons.”

Netanyahu’s office later said he misspoke, insisting the prepared speech said “credible military threat” instead of “credible nuclear threat.” Iran still issued a complaint, noting that Israel has an arsenal of nuclear weapons that it does not acknowledge.

Iranian Ambassador to the UN Amir Saeid Iravani accused Netanyahu of making “explicit threats to use nuclear weapons against an independent member state of the United Nations.”

Iravani said the threat is more serious coming from Israel, which he described as an “illegitimate regime that has been widely condemned for aggressions, for apartheid policies and for support for terrorism, as well as for possessing an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction alongside advanced conventional weapons.”

The Iranian envoy said the “use or even the mere threat of using nuclear weapons, regardless of the circumstances, by anyone, at any time and in any place, is a clear violation of international laws.”

While Netanyahu and other Israeli officials are constantly sounding the alarm about Iran’s nuclear program, there’s no sign Tehran is trying to build a nuclear bomb, which has been recently affirmed by a US intelligence report.

Author: Dave DeCamp

Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.