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Netanyahu to Putin: Iran Seeks to “Annihilate Israel”

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Russiau2019s President Vladimir Putin last Wednesday in the Russian resort town of Sochi to discuss how Iranu2019s u201cacceleratedu201d presence in Syria threatens the Jewish state and the Middle East.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin last Wednesday in the Russian resort town of Sochi to discuss how Iran’s “accelerated” presence in Syria threatens the Jewish state and the Middle East.

Netanyahu was joined in Sochi by Yossi Cohen, director of the Mossad intelligence agency, and Meir Ben-Shabbat, the recently appointed leader of Israel’s National Security Council.

“Mr. President, with joint efforts we are defeating Islamic State, and this is a very important thing,” Netanyahu told Putin. “But the bad thing is that where the defeated Islamic State group vanishes, Iran is stepping in.”

“We cannot forget for a single minute that Iran threatens every day to annihilate Israel,” he said. “It arms terrorist organizations, it sponsors and initiates terror.”

Netanyahu also noted that the Islamic Republic is “well on its way” to controlling not only Syria, but other countries in the Middle East, including Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon.

“Beyond making the argument that Iran’s growing sphere of influence threatens Israel, I hope Netanyahu pointed out to Putin [in their private meeting] that Moscow’s short-term benefits from working with Tehran pale in comparison with the long-term dangers,” Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum think tank, told JNS.org.

“When strong enough, the mullahs inevitably will turn their aggressive ideological attentions on an increasingly Muslim Russia,” he said.

During the portion of the leaders’ meeting that was open to the public, Putin did not respond to Netanyahu’s comments regarding Iran’s role in Syria.

In the closed-door part of the meeting, the Mossad’s Cohen reportedly presented the Russian leader with “sensitive, credible and very disturbing detailed intelligence” of Iran’s expanding military presence in Syria.

Citing a senior Israeli official, Haaretz reported in July that Israel is aware of Iranian plans to build up its forces in Syria through the establishment of permanent air and naval bases.

“[Israel must] put pressure on the Russians” to protect its security interests in Syria, Prof. Eyal Zisser, a senior research fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, and the vice rector of Tel Aviv University, told JNS.org.

Yet Israel has “relatively little leverage” over the Russians, said Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank.

“Israel has its own missile defense and air defense systems for its own perimeter, which gives it a seat at the table,” Schanzer told JNS.org, “but in terms of telling the Russians or the U.S. what to do, this is a heavier lift.”

Netanyahu’s visit to Russia comes after a high-level Israeli security delegation met with senior U.S. defense officials last week in Washington, D.C. The Israeli officials were dismayed over a failure to secure a commitment from the U.S. for an inclusion of a clause demanding the full withdrawal of Iranian forces from Syria in the event of a peace deal to end that country’s civil war.

By: Adam Abrams
(JNS)

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