Israeli President Isaac Herzog told a joint session of Congress on Wednesday that Iran’s nuclear program is the greatest challenge his country is facing. In a speech marking the 75th anniversary of Israel’s founding, Herzog said that Iran’s nuclear ambitions “pose a threat to the stability of the Middle East and beyond,” and that the country is working with its proxies toward the destruction of Israel.
“The world cannot remain indifferent to the Iranian regime’s call to ‘wipe Israel off the map,'” Herzog said, referencing a 2005 comment from former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s that have since been disputed based on a possible mistranslation. “Tolerating this call and Iran’s measures to realize it is an [inexcusable] moral collapse. Backed by the free world, Israel and the United States must act forcefully together to prevent Iran’s fundamental threat to international security.”
Israel and Iran have for decades engaged in a kind of cold war, with Israel openly advertising its goal of thwarting Iran’s attempts to become a nuclear-armed nation. Israel opposed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal brokered between that country and several others, including the United States. Former president Donald Trump announced in 2018 the U.S. would withdraw from that deal. As of early 2023, U.S. and Israeli intelligence suggested that Iran had not yet created a nuclear weapon, and that it would take another year or two to do so, according to the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Iran views the possession of nuclear arms as key to protecting its state and deterring a potential attack from regional adversaries as well as the U.S.
Herzog is the second Israeli president, after his father, Chaim Herzog, to address Congress
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