Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told foreign journalists Wednesday that the American diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks showed that Iran and its nuclear program were the primary concern for leaders in the Middle East.
“The WikiLeaks exposed the three main concerns of most, if not all, of the governments in this region. The first concern is Iran; the second concern is Iran; and the third concern is Iran,” Netanyahu said at an annual meeting with members of the international press in Israel.
He added that while Arab-Israeli conflict was an important issue, most Mideast governments understood that a failure to thwart Iran’s atomic ambitions would leave all peace moves in tatters.
“That's not to say that they [Mideast leaders] don't want to see the advance in the peace process – they do; that they're not concerned about the Arab-Israeli peace – they are. But they're very much concerned that all of this would come to naught, and in fact their own interests (I'm speaking diplomatically now) would be tremendously jeopardized unless the Iranian nuclear program is stopped. Peace would be stopped and vital interests of just about every government in the region would be threatened.”
Such a threat by Iran, Netanyahu said in remarks at the start of the meeting, have “become part of the international understanding of very broad segments of the world community.”
“People witnessed the brutal nature of this regime in the wake of its elections and Iran was caught red-handed building a nuclear facility, a secret nuclear facility in Qom,” he said.