Netanyahu slams int'l community for failing to condemn Iran

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Press Trust of India Eilat (Israel)
Last Updated : Mar 11 2014 | 3:45 AM IST
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has slammed the international community for failing to condemn Iran's involvement in smuggling of weapons shipment into Gaza.
He said there is a wave of condemnation of Israel when it "builds a balcony in Jerusalem" but the world was nearly silent when Iran tried to smuggle long-range missiles.
The Israeli leaders, along with defence officials, descended to this southern port city to showcase the cache of weapons allegedly seized from an Iranian arms ship some 1,500 kilometers away from Israeli shores last Wednesday.
The Israeli Premier, standing in front of cache of arms, emphasised that there are those in the world who did not want Israel to show the intercepted ordnance because they were not interested in knowing what was truly happening inside Iran, but rather to "develop the illusion that Iran has changed direction."
"But the facts," he said, "prove the exact opposite".
Taking a dig at EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton for her trip to Tehran, without taking her name, Netanyahu said it was more evidence that we live in the "era of hypocrisy".
"I heard only isolated and weak condemnation of Iran from the international community regarding this deadly shipment," he said.
"By contrast, we are witness to smiles and handshakes of representatives of the west with the representatives of Iran in Tehran at the very time that these missiles were being unloaded in Eilat."
The Israeli leader on Sunday at the weekly cabinet meeting had called upon Ashton to raise the issue during her meetings with Iranian leaders.
Netanyahu said the world ignoring Iran's involvement in the deadly shipment "is more evidence of the era of hypocrisy in which we live."
"This hypocrisy is not only morally wrong", he said, "but dangerous".
"This time there were long-range missiles in these containers," the Israeli Premier said adding, "in the containers in the future Iran can arm nuclear suitcases that it can send to every port in the world.
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First Published: Mar 11 2014 | 3:45 AM IST

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