“Israel will continue to act with full force against whoever seeks to undermine its security,” said Netanyahu after the UN blocked extension of an arms embargo on the world’s top state sponsor of terror.
By Ebin Sandler, World Israel News
“The decision of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) not to renew the arms embargo on Iran is scandalous,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an official statement on Saturday night.
“Iranian terrorism and aggression threaten the peace of the region and the entire world,” Netanyahu continued.
Netanyahu issued the statement after the Security Council refused to pass a U.S.-sponsored resolution to indefinitely extend the arms embargo on Iran, which the U.S. designates as the world’s top state sponsor of terror.
In response, the Trump administration vowed to take additional steps to stop Tehran from trading in conventional weapons.
“Instead of opposing weapons sales, the Security Council is encouraging them. We will continue to act in close cooperation with the US and countries in the region to block the Iranian aggression,” Netanyahu said in response.
Only two members of the 15-member Security Council, the U.S. and the Dominican Republic, voted to extend the arms embargo, which was part of the body’s resolution endorsing the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and six other countries.
The embargo is set to expire on October 18.
The U.S. withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal due to Iran’s regional aggression, including its support for terror groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis, which destabilize their host countries and neighboring states, in addition to brutalizing local populations.
Israel has also produced evidence that Iran continues to pursue nuclear weapons, an accusation Tehran denies.
Eleven countries abstained from the Security Council vote on Friday, with Russia and China mounting the strongest opposition to its passage.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo commented on Friday that “Arab nations and Israel strongly supported extending the embargo.”
“Last weekend, the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council came together to ask the Security Council to extend the embargo,” Pompeo added. “Israel also asked the Council to do the same to prevent Iran from expanding and modernizing its arsenal.”
Pompeo continued, “These countries know Iran will spread even greater chaos and destruction if the embargo expires, but the Security Council chose to ignore them.”
U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft said that the the U.S. was “sickened — but not surprised” by the Security Council “[giving] the green light to Iran to buy and sell all manner of conventional weapons.”
Craft added, “Failing to step up to this moral challenge validates the world’s number one state sponsor of terror, just to save face and protect a failed political deal made outside the Council.”
In his statement on Saturday, Netanyahu vowed that “Israel will continue to act with full force against whoever seeks to undermine its security.”