(AP/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Mohammad Javad Zarif

Is Iran really “a country without nuclear weapons” that is “threatened with atomic annihilation by a warmonger?”

By: World Israel News and United with Israel Staff

Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif rejected Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statement in which he warned the Islamic Republic against seeking Israel’s destruction and called it “beyond shameless.”

At a renaming ceremony for the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center in Dimona on Wednesday, Netanyahu stressed Israel’s military capabilities, adding that only through strength can peace be achieved.

“Our enemies know very well what Israel is capable of doing. They are familiar with our policy. Whoever tries to hurt us – we hurt them,” the prime minister declared.

“In the military sphere, the IDF will continue to take strong and determined action against Iran’s attempts to station forces and advanced weapons systems in Syria. No agreement between Syria and Iran will deter us; neither will any threat deter us,” he declared.

“Whoever threatens us with destruction puts himself in similar danger, and in any case will not achieve his goal,” Netanyahu affirmed.

“Iran, a country without nuclear weapons, is threatened with atomic annihilation by a warmonger standing next to an actual nuclear weapons factory. Beyond shameless is the gall,” Zarif shamelessly tweeted in response.

Innocent Iran?

While Iran may currently not be in possession of an atomic weapon, it has definitely been working on developing one.

Netanyahu in March unveiled a trove of more than 100,000 Iranian documents obtained by the Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, from a secret warehouse in southern Tehran. These documents include classified maps, charts, photographs, blueprints, videos and more documenting the Islamic Republic’s ongoing effort to create nuclear weapons.

Israel has known for years that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program called Project Amad, Netanyahu said. “We can now prove that PA was a comprehensive program to design, build and test nuclear weapons.”

Iran also maintains a missile program it claims is for defensive purposes, but the West fears it is being developed to carry nuclear warheads.

Furthermore, many of these weapons were given to the Hezbollah terror organization and used against Israel’s civilian population during the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006.

Iran does not recognize Israel and regularly calls for its destruction.

In a rally in Tehran last year, Iran unveiled a digital clock in the city’s Palestine Square counting down the days to what it says will be the destruction of Israel in 2040.

The time frame appears to stem from comments made in 2015 by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who vowed there will be “nothing” left of Israel by the year 2040.

In September 2015, Khamenei proclaimed, “You [Israelis] will not see the coming 25 years and, God willing, there will not be something named the Zionist regime in next 25 years.”

He later tweeted in broken English, “Struggling, heroic and jihadi morale will leave no moment of serenity for Zionists.” Khamenei calls for Israel’s destruction almost on a weekly basis.

Most recently, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani threatened Israel, while calling for all Palestinians to “return to their homeland.”

Israel can never feel that it is in a safe place,” Rouhani told reporters in June, as Iranians marked Quds Day by condemning Israel and chanting “death to Israel” and “death to America.”