Netanyahu: Israel should take out Iranian nuclear facilities

Jerusalem - Israel should undertake an operation to destroy the Iranian nuclear programme similar to the airstrike it launched against the nuclear reactor built by Saddam Hussein, leading opposition legislator and prime ministerial candidate Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.




'Israel should not allow Iran to develop a nuclear threat against it,' Netanyahu, challenging to become leader of the Likud Party and its candidate for premier in the March 28 elections, told Israel Radio.

'I'm carrying the tradition of (former Israeli premier) Menahem Begin, who did not let one of Iran's neighbours, the Iraq of Saddam Hussein, develop such a threat against Israel and in a bold and daring strike bought us two decades. I believe this is what Israel should do,' he said.

Israeli jets bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osarik in summer 1981.

'The Iranian threat is a real one, a threat to the existence of Israel, from a state which has declared its intentions to destroy Israel,' Netanyahu said.

Premier Ariel Sharon said earlier in the day that while Iran should not be allowed to become a nuclear power, Israel was not spearheading attempts to stop it.

Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz told foreign reporters in Tel Aviv that he doubted diplomacy would succeed in halting Iran's nuclear programme.

'I believe that the political methods used by the Europeans and the United States to convince the Iranians to stop the project will not succeed,' he said.

© dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur