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Jerusalem — A senior Israeli minister yesterday criticised the prime minister’s instruction to Israel’s UN delegation to boycott the Iranian president’s speech at the General Assembly, saying it created the impression that Israel was not interested in encouraging a peaceful solution to issues around Iran’s nuclear programme.
In a text message statement sent to reporters, Finance Minister Yair Lapid said Benjamin Netanyahu’s instruction to Israeli delegates to leave the General Assembly during the speech was a “mistake”.
“Israel should not seem as if it is serially opposed to negotiations and as a country that is uninterested in peaceful solutions,” Lapid said. “Leaving the UN General Assembly and boycotting is irrelevant in current diplomacy, and is reminiscent of the way Arab countries have acted toward Israel.”
Israel believes Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb, and Netanyahu has voiced scepticism at recent moderate gestures by Iranian President Hasan Rouhani, whom he has called “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”. Israeli officials fear Rouhani’s outreach to the West could lead to an easing of international pressure on the country.
Netanyahu explained why he had instructed Israel’s delegation to boycott Rouhani’s speech.
“As the prime minister of Israel, the state of the Jewish people, I could not allow the Israeli delegation to be part of a cynical public relations ploy by a regime that denies the Holocaust and calls for our destruction,” he said. — AFP
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