Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the possible nuclear deal with Iran is worse than the original accord seven years ago.
"The terrible deal with Iran … casts a heavy shadow on our security and our future," Netanyahu told media members in Tel Aviv, the Times of Israel reported. "The deal enables Iran to get everything and give nothing … The current deal is worse than the previous deal."
Iran and world powers expressed cautious optimism Monday regarding the prospects of reaching a new nuclear deal, potentially by next week, according to the European Union.
Former President Donald Trump in 2018 pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear deal meant to curb Iran's nuclear weapon ambitions that had been agreed upon under former President Barack Obama in 2015.
Netanyahu, current leader of the opposition, was prime minister when he crusaded to stop the U.S., United Kingdom, Russia, China, France, and Germany from making JCPOA deal with Iran. He even expressed his stance in an address to Congress.
On Wednesday, Netanyahu advocated a path that integrates crushing sanctions remaining in place alongside a credible military threat.
"Deals don't stop the nuclear plan," the Likud leader said, the Times reported. "The combination of grinding sanctions and a rich, realistic, credible military threat are the only things that stop [a nuclear weapons program]."
Netanyahu said the new deal would give Iran "hundreds of billions of dollars" to fund "terror and Iranian aggression in the region," and up to $1 trillion by the deal's final year in 2031.
He added that the deal would allow Iran to dramatically increase its uranium enrichment capabilities through the deployment of an "advanced centrifuge network."
Enriched uranium is the fissile material needed for a nuclear reaction.
"The P5+1 [U.N.'s Security Council's five permanent members] are basically saying you can continue to advance towards being a nuclear threshold state and you are immune from attack," Netanyahu said, the Times reported.
Although he criticized Israel's current government for failing to pressure Washington to stop the deal, Netanyahu appealed for unity against the Iranian threat.
"A nuclear weapon doesn't differentiate between left and right, between Jews and Arabs, between secular and religious. It threatens all of us," he said.
Israel Prime Minister Yair Lapid also urged President Joe Biden and Western powers to call off the emerging nuclear deal with Iran, saying that negotiators are letting Tehran manipulate the talks and that an agreement would reward Israel's enemies.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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