Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Thursday took aim at the Iranian nuclear program, saying that the regime was using negotiations to stall and urging clear "red lines" on its uranium enrichment.
"At this late hour, there is only one way to peacefully prevent Iran from getting atomic bombs and that's by placing a clear red line on Iran's nuclear weapons program," Netanyahu said in an address to the United Nations General Assembly. "Red lines don't lead to war; red lines prevent war."
"Iran uses diplomatic negotiations to buy time to advance its program," he said. "The international community has tried sanctions, has passed some of strongest sanctions. Oil exports have been curbed, and the Iranian economy has been hit hard. But we must face the truth that sanctions have not stopped Iran's nuclear drive."
Citing data from the IAEA, Netanyahu said that Iran "doubled its centrifuges last year."
Physically drawing a red line across a diagram of the Iranian bomb, that he held up before the assembly, Netanyahu said that a red line must be placed on Iran's uranium enrichment program: "Then Iran will back down," he asserted.
Turning to the United States, Netanyahu said he was confident Israel and the United States could chart a way forward on how to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
"Israel is in discussions with the United States over this issue and I am confident that we can chart a path forward together," Netanyahu stressed.
In a direct response to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who delivered a speech just moments earlier, the prime minister said, "we won't solve our conflict with libelous speeches at the UN or unilateral declarations of statehood."
"We have to sit together, negotiate," he said, emphasizing the importance of Palestinian recognition "of the one and only Jewish state."
Netanyahu emphasized the roots of the Jewish people in the land of Israel: "Three thousand years ago King David reigned over the Jewish State in our eternal capital, Jerusalem," he said, asserting that the "Jewish State will live forever."
Following Netanyahu's speech, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, accompanying Netanyahu at the UN, told Channel 1 reporters that the red line drawn by Netanyahu could "absolutely" be effective in convincing the international community of the seriousness of the threat.
"In order to prevent the next war, we must prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons," he said. "It is often difficult for people to really understand what is meant by 'red lines' and this could be effective in explaining Israel's limits."
The foreign minister also took aim at Abbas, calling his speech "incitement" and slamming his use of the words "ethnic cleansing" and "nakba" to describe the situation in the West Bank.