Agreement between coalition and opposition is especially important at this time, PM tells opposition leader; Herzog previously blamed Netanyahu’s ‘personal rift’ with Obama for ‘bad deal.’
Ha’aretz
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Opposition Leader Isaac Herzog met on Tuesday to discuss the nuclear deal signed between world powers and Iran. In their meeting, the prime minister updated the opposition leader on the briefs given to cabinet ministers regarding the implications of the deal to Israel’s security.
Netanyahu told Herzog that the agreement between the coalition and the opposition regarding the danger the deal entails for Israel’s security is especially important at this time, and added that “on this issue, relating to the most significant national interest, it’s important to present the world with a unified stance.”
Herzog reiterated his statements from earlier on Tuesday, saying that the deal is bad and that he is “enlisting to do everything for the security of the State of Israel in the new situation that has been created.”
On Monday, Herzog criticized Netanyahu on his Facebook page, writing among other things that “one of the most severe issues in the current situation is that the deal with the highest effect in this generation on Israel’s existence was signed without Israel in the picture. Without consulting Israel. Without updating Israel. Israel’s interests have been forsaken – due, among other reasons, to the personal rift between Netanyahu and the U.S. president.”
Earlier on Tuesday, the Israeli security cabinet unanimously decided to reject the agreement reached in Vienna and said that Israel was not bound by it, a stance also voiced by Netanyahu.
The ministers were briefed in the meeting by Mossad chief Tamir Pardo, chief of Military Intelligence Herzi Halevi, National Security Adviser Yossi Cohen and other officials. The main message the ministers received in the analysis of the agreement was that even if Iran’s nuclear program will be limited in the next few years, in the long term – after the limitations on the nuclear program are lifted – the deal may be a serious threat to Israel’s security.
