Former Israeli PM believes that Netanyahu exaggerates Iran nuclear threat

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has accused the current incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu of exaggerating the Iranian nuclear threat, called for a two-state solution with the Palestinians and predicted the fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Speaking at the annual Jerusalem Post conference held in New York on Sunday, Olmert said that the Iranian nuclear programme has not been making progress in years and the extent of the threat has been exaggerated.

However, Barack Obama’s claim during his visit to Israel last month that he will not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons, said Olmert, means that the US is doing its best not to see Iran with nuclear capabilities. He called on the government in Tehran to take that seriously.

The former PM warned Netanyahu about international isolation, “not because the international community is anti-Semitic, but because it can no longer accept Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian lands occupied in 1967”. He demanded that the Israeli government should deal with US leaders wisely and avoid making comments which frustrate them.

Calling for the implementation of the two-state solution Olmert stressed that failure to reach such a solution will have a disastrous impact on Israel. The current strategic situation of Israel, he noted, is the best it has been in recent years and he does not expect Israel to have to go to war for the next ten years as a number of Arab states have changed their attitude towards Israel in their effort to avoid action which might cost millions of lives.