Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that President-elect Biden's administration “must not go back to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran."
Why it matters: The comments — at the annual memorial ceremony for Israel’s first prime minister David Ben-Gurion — signal that Netanyahu is planning to repeat the public campaign against an Iran deal that he engaged in during the Obama administration.
- Domestically, they also indicate that Netanyahu is preparing for a new election campaign in which he will claim he is the only one who can stand firm against Biden and protect Israel from Iran.
What he's saying: Netanyahu said that Israel must stick to an uncompromising policy of ensuring that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons.
- “Thanks to our determined stand against the nuclearization of Iran, and to our opposition to the nuclear agreement with Iran, many Arab countries have fundamentally changed their approach to Israel."
The state of play: Biden's team believes President Trump's withdrawal from the Iran deal was a catastrophic mistake, but recognizes that it won't be easy to put the deal back together in a way that can last.