We Saved Jews 3 Times, Netanyahu Should Revise History Lessons – Iranian FM

Speaking with NBC, Zarif slamed the Israeli prime min­is­ter, Benjamin Netanyahu, after he once again said in his Monday’s speech before the US Congress that Iran open­ly threat­ened to wipe Israel off the map.

The Iranian FM urged Netanyahu to refresh his knowl­edge of his­to­ry as his com­ments have not only “distort[ed] real­i­ties of today,” but also go against the Bible and Jewish sacred texts.

“He even dis­torts his own scrip­ture. If you read the book of Esther, you will see that it was the Iranian king who saved the Jews…” Zarif said.

The Iranian Minister called Netanyahu’s accu­sa­tions “tru­ly regret­table” stress­ing that they refer to “an entire nation which has saved Jews three times.”

“It is tru­ly, tru­ly regret­table that big­otry gets to the point of mak­ing alle­ga­tions against an entire nation which has saved Jews three times in its his­to­ry: Once dur­ing that time of a prime min­is­ter who was try­ing to kill the Jews, and the king saved the Jews; again dur­ing the time of Cyrus the Great, where he saved the Jews from Babylon, and dur­ing the Second World War, where Iran saved the Jews,” he said.

“We’re not about the anni­hi­la­tion of Jews,” Zarif stressed, remind­ing the chan­nel that 20,000 Jews reside in Iran “in peace” and even have their own rep­re­sen­ta­tive in parliament.

“We have a his­to­ry of tol­er­ance and coöper­a­tion and liv­ing togeth­er in coex­is­tence with our own Jewish peo­ple, and with Jews every­where in the world. If peo­ple want to espouse fear mon­ger­ing to fan such hys­te­ria in the world, that’s to their detri­ment,” Zafir said.

On the con­trary, he stressed, the cur­rent Israeli régime “is a threat” to Iran as it’s a régime “that engages in the killing of inno­cent chil­dren, a régime that engages in acts of aggression.”

“Israel threat­ens to use force against Iran almost on a dai­ly basis… Of course, if they did use force against Iran, we would defend our­selves, as we have done with great sac­ri­fice in the past. But we are not invad­ing, we are not threat­en­ing any­body. We have not threat­ened any­body for 250 years,” the Iranian FM said.

While Netanyahu only has “a record full of infan­ti­cide, full of killing of inno­cent peo­ple, full of aggres­sion against his neigh­bor, full of occu­pa­tion,” he added.

Tehran and the P5+1 pow­ers (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France, plus Germany) are cur­rent­ly in the deci­sive stage of talks, hop­ing to reach com­pro­mise over Iran’s con­tro­ver­sial nuclear pro­gram by mid-summer.

Zarif has once again turned down accu­sa­tions by the West that the Iranian author­i­ties are try­ing to devel­op nuclear-weapons capa­bil­i­ties, but Tehran insists that its pro­gram is for peace­ful purposes.

“We nev­er had the bomb. We will nev­er have a bomb. We’re not look­ing to have a bomb. We do not believe a bomb is in our inter­est. Whereas [Netanyahu] does have a bomb. He has 200 nuclear weapons,” he said.

Zarif then went on to say that Israeli Prime Minister “has stood against a Middle East free from weapons of mass destruc­tion” and he still accus­es Iran of prepar­ing one.

“He’s in no place to do that. He doesn’t have the author­i­ty, the moral author­i­ty, to do that,” Zarif said.

According to the FM, Iran and the six world pow­ers are “very close” to reach­ing a deal, but “there are details that need to be worked out.”

On Tuesday the Israeli Prime Minister once again voiced his fierce oppo­si­tion to Iran’s nuclear pro­gram in front of a joint ses­sion of the US Congress, call­ing Tehran “the fore­most spon­sor of ter­ror­ism” that threat­ens not only the Israel and the Middle East, but the world, includ­ing the America.

Netanyahu urged for Iran to cease a “march of con­quest, sub­ju­ga­tion and terror.”

Yet, on Monday, US President Barack Obama defend­ed nuclear nego­ti­a­tions with Iran and main­tained that a favor­able set­tle­ment was still possible.

While Iran is still “more like­ly than not” to reject a deal, Obama stressed to Reuters that the odds of suc­cess are bet­ter today than three or five months ago.

The so-called P5+1 group of Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany is amid nego­ti­a­tion hop­ing to strike a frame­work deal with Iran before a late March deadline.
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