WarSclerotic

With the Nov. 24 deadline for a final nuclear deal between world powers and Iran approaching, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Sunday of the dangers a nuclear-armed Iran would pose.

“This is a threat to the entire world, and, first and foremost, this is a threat to us,” Netanyahu said at an event honoring the late former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

“This threat is grave to all of us, far more than the threat of the Islamic State group. Today, we are facing the danger of an agreement [between world powers and Iran] that would leave Iran as a nuclear threshold state, with thousands of centrifuges with which it could produce material for a nuclear bomb within a short period of time.”

At Sunday’s event, Highway 9 in Jerusalem was named after Shamir, who served as prime minister from 1983 to 1984 and again from 1986 to 1992. At the ceremony, Netanyahu spoke highly of the deceased leader, saying Shamir had understood that “we must rely, first of all, on ourselves, on our power to defend ourselves.”

Israeli officials said they were “deeply concerned” about the emerging agreement between world powers — led by the U.S. — and Iran. Based on the information it has about the potential deal, Israel is increasingly worried that Iran would remain a nuclear threshold state with the capability to build a nuclear bomb within just a few months.

According to a Channel 2 report, the U.S. is willing to accept an agreement with Iran that would permit it to retain 5,000 centrifuges.

In an op-ed published in The New York Times on Sunday, International Relations, Intelligence and Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz called on world powers not to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran.

“Iran has softened its inflammatory anti-Western rhetoric and shown some flexibility on less important issues, but we must not be duped by these gestures,” Steinitz wrote. “President [Barack] Obama must stand by his declaration that no deal with Iran is better than a bad deal.”