Israel’s top envoy to Taiwan yesterday defended her country’s decision to attack Iran, saying the ongoing military actions are an “act of self-defense” on Israel’s part before Iran builds atomic bombs.
“For us, defending our country is something that we must do, and we needed to act on time before it’s too late, before they [Iran] have a nuclear atomic bomb,” Israeli Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei Representative Maya Yaron told a news briefing in Taipei.
The ongoing Operation Rising Lion aims to neutralize Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs so that Israel no longer has an existential immediate threat, she said.
Photo: Huang Chin-hsuan, Taipei Times
Israel is smaller in size and has a smaller population than Taiwan, and is facing a threat from Iran with 10,000 missiles being built against it, she said.
Iran is a “radical Islamist regime,” “a dictatorship” and “the most repressive government in the world,” she added.
“Everything that you know about Taiwan’s way of life, about Taiwan’s vibrant democracy, does not exist in Iran. No women’s rights, no LGBTQi, no freedom of press, no freedom of speech. There is no democracy. There is only oppression. This is a terrorist regime that is acting against its own people,” she said.
“If we who belong to the free world and we are in this community together, we must remain aware and we must be united in front of any tactics that try to distort us from this truth,” she said, while commenting on the misinformation campaigns on the Israel-Iran war.
“There is no other alternative. We cannot have this regime have nuclear weapons,” she added.
Since 1992, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu has made multiple claims about the “imminent threat” of Iran developing nuclear weapons.
On March 25, US National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, speaking at the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing for the Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, said Iran was not building nuclear weapons and had not resumed its suspended 2003 nuclear weapons program.
Asked whether Iran was developing nuclear weapons, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi said in a recent interview with CNN: “We did not have any proof of a systematic effort to move into a nuclear weapon.”
Israel is widely believed to have its own extensive nuclear weapons program, but unlike Iran has not signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
In Taipei, Presidential Office spokesperson Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) on Sunday said that the government’s national security team has been keeping close tabs on the escalating tensions in the Middle East and is regularly briefing President William Lai (賴清德) about the latest developments.
Lai has instructed the national security team and the executive branch to continue to pay close attention to possible developments and respond effectively to potential impacts on the global political and economic markets, she added.
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Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
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