Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel would oppose any deal that would allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, as talks take place in Vienna between Tehran and the international community to try to salvage the 2015 deal on Iranian nuclear power.
"An agreement with Iran that would pave the way for nuclear weapons (...) would in no way be binding on us,"
the Israeli prime minister said.
Read also: Iranian nuclear: a small step in the right direction
Benjamin Netanyahu was speaking in a speech at the Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Israel accuses the Islamic Republic of Iran, the sworn enemy of the Hebrew state, of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, which Tehran has always denied.
“During the Holocaust, we had neither the capacity to defend ourselves nor the sovereignty to do so,”
added Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Today we have a state, a defense force and we have the full and natural right as a sovereign state of the Jewish people to defend ourselves against our enemies."
Faced with tensions with Iran, Israel has concluded in recent months agreements to normalize diplomatic relations with, in particular, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, two Gulf Arab countries where Jewish communities this year organized public ceremonies for the first time in the occasion of Remembrance Day.
"At this precise moment, a museum in Dubai is organizing an event for the remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust,"
said the Israeli prime minister.
"This is a sign of a welcome change in relations between Arabs and Jews."
"The Gulf region has seen a change in recent years when it comes to discussing the Holocaust,"
Houda Nonoo, former Bahraini ambassador to the United States and member of the Association of Communities, told AFP. Gulf Jews.
The Association is organizing a virtual discussion for the occasion for the Jewish communities of the six Arab Gulf monarchies: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Houda Nonoo said, noting a change as well. in Holocaust education.
Wednesday's ceremonies come as the annual report on anti-Semitism prepared by Tel Aviv University and the European Jewish Congress points to a decrease in attacks on Jews due to anti-coronavirus lockdowns but an increase in cases of vandalism targeting of Jewish properties or institutions around the world.
“In times of social crisis, Jews are always the scapegoat and targeted, and we have seen this during the Covid-19 period,”
said Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress.
