Netanyahu: We struck Iran to prevent nuclear Holocaust
"It was the 12th hour, and we did act. To save ourselves but also … to protect the world from this incendiary regime,” Netanyahu told Fox News's Bret Baier.
Israel launched airstrikes against Iran as part of Operation Rising Lion in order to prevent a nuclear Holocaust, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News on Sunday.
Israel dd so because they had gathered intelligence that Iran was months away from developing an initial nuclear weapon.
"We had to act," Netanyahu stated, adding that "It was the 12th hour, and we did act. To save ourselves but also … to protect the world from this incendiary regime.”
“The intel we got and we shared with the United States was absolutely clear: That they were working in a secret plan to weaponize the uranium, they were marching very quickly, they would achieve a test device and possibly an initial device within months, and certainly less than a year,” he said.
“That is something that we couldn’t possibly accept,” he added. “We will not have a second Holocaust, a nuclear Holocaust. We already had one, in the previous century – the Jewish state is not going to have the Holocaust committed on the Jewish people. It’s not going to happen.”
Enough enriched uranium for nine nuclear bombs
Netanyahu also claimed that Israeli intelligence found that Iran possessed enough enriched uranium for nine bombs, telling Fox News that "all they had to do was weaponize them. We stopped that.”Fox News's Bret Baier asked Netanyahu if regime change was among Israel's objectives. "It could certainly be the result, because the Iran regime is very weak,” Netanyahu answered.
“80% of the people would throw these theological thugs out. They shoot women because their hair is uncovered. They shoot students. They just suck the oxygen out from these brave and gifted people, the Iranian people. The decision to act, to rise up this time, is the decision of the Iranian people," he added.
The prime minister said that he believed that Israeli strikes on Iran had set the Islamic Republic back significantly. “I think we’ve set them back quite a bit. They were very surprised,” Netanyahu told Fox News.
