Jerusalem — Amid accusations that the Biden administration is appeasing the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear weapons drive, former Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Tehran seeks a nuclear holocaust targeted at the Jewish state.
Lieberman, a member of the Israeli parliament (Knesset), told Israeli Army Radio on Tuesday that Iran was “planning a holocaust against us over the next two years.”
“We are in the middle of an Iranian annihilation program,” Lieberman said. “Israel will be attacked with tens of thousands of missiles simultaneously with the intent of destroying it on multiple fronts.”
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Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Getty Images)
The day after Lieberman’s remarks, Brigadier General Yossi Cooperwasser, former head of research for the Israel Defense Forces’ military intelligence, told Israel’s TPS news agency: “The Biden administration wants to avoid any confrontation with Iran because it fears that a confrontation could lead to a confrontational Iran actually moving toward acquiring nuclear weapons. But [Iran’s leaders] They believe that Trump will be the next president, and they may actually be trying to detonate a bomb.
“They have enough fissile material to produce three bombs within a month.”
Former Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman made the remarks at a press conference in Jerusalem, Israel on November 15. (Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
This week has seen a flurry of regulatory, diplomatic and congressional activity targeting Iran over its continued illegal nuclear weapons program.
Technicians work inside a uranium conversion unit on the outskirts of the city of Isfahan, south of Tehran, Iran, on March 30, 2005. (Getty Images)
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Wednesday criticized Iran for failing to cooperate with the agency’s inspectors in a resolution proposed by Britain, France and Germany, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Biden administration tried to dissuade Prevent European countries from criticizing Iran at the IAEA.
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Members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards march in a parade marking the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq War. (Reuters)
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller denied the Wall Street Journal report, saying: “The report is untrue. We have not encouraged any country to vote against or abstain on the resolution on this matter. We are aggressively increasing pressure on Iran through a combination of sanctions, deterrence and international isolation to counter Iran’s destabilizing behavior and prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.”
“But I don’t think you should expect any discord from us with our E3 partners. We’ve valued our solidarity with them and we expect that to continue.”
The United States agreed at the last minute on Wednesday after increasing pressure to join European countries in condemning Iran.
Fox News Digital asked Lieberman about his prediction about Iran using nuclear weapons, multiple diplomatic sources who said the EU doesn’t want to condemn Iran at the IAEA, and the State Department’s response to whether the Biden administration plans to impose new sanctions on Tehran.
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The governments of Britain, France and Germany sent a letter to the UN Security Council on Friday outlining Iran’s alleged breaches of the 2015 nuclear deal. But the European nations did not announce an “immediate reinstatement” of UN sanctions for Iran’s alleged breaches of the deal. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the Iran nuclear deal is officially called, expires on October 18, 2025.
The Trump administration withdrew from the deal in 2018, but the former president argued it was a “terrible” agreement that only imposed temporary limits on Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon.
according to Ali Shamkhani, Iran InternationalShamkhani, a senior aide to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, currently oversees Iran’s nuclear negotiations. In a defiant post on Thursday, Shamkhani said, “From the JCPOA to the recent IAEA Board of Governors meeting, in keeping with their role as police of good and evil, the US and European troika have tried to manage Iran’s response to their own misdeeds by giving Iran false hope. They have never succeeded and never will.”
Fox News Digital reported this week that Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Rep. Mike Lawler of New York introduced a resolution “to refer this issue to the United Nations Security Council and reaffirm that all steps will be taken to prevent the Iranian regime from acquiring a nuclear weapon.”
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In late May, Fox News Digital reported that IAEA documents obtained by The Associated Press showed that Iran had 313.2 pounds of uranium enriched to 60 percent as of May 11, up 45.4 pounds from the U.N. monitor’s last report in February. Uranium enriched to 60 percent purity is technically just one step away from the weapons-grade level of 90 percent.
Fox News’ Jamie Joseph and Pilar Arias contributed to this report.
