Zarif fires back at Netanyahu in rare video message to Jews

Presidential aide and former foreign minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of undermining the 2015 nuclear deal and fueling regional conflicts, in a rare video message directed at Jews worldwide.

In the Monday video message, published on Zarif’s X and Instagram accounts, the Iranian vice-president for strategic affairs said the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), “could have been the foundation of a new era of peace, tranquility, regional cooperation, and freedom from threats, conflicts, and escalating tensions.”

“However, before too long, Netanyahu and his Zionist and extremist cohorts succeeded in their satanic effort to rob the region and the world of this historic opportunity, standing on the wrong side of history,” Zarif said. “The agreement would have ensured that the ‘wolf’ this habitual liar was always ‘crying’ about, would never come to town.”

In the video, Zarif appears as a peace-loving, compassionate politician, calling for peace and harmony, while he spent most of his career as a diplomat representing and defending the Islamic Republic's domestic authoritarian rule and aggressive, anti-Israel and anti-West policies.

Over the years, Zarif’s attempts to deny or explain away human rights violations in Iran have led to a lot of attacks by critics who say he has been whitewashing the Islamic Republic’s record. The same can be said about his defense of Tehran’s policies in the region, its role in the Syrian civil war, and support for militant groups in the region.

Back in 2022, Netanyahu called the JCPOA a “horrible agreement because it allowed Iran basically with international approval, to develop a nuclear and basically an atomic arsenal paved with gold, with hundreds of billions of dollars of sanction relief.”

Before Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA in 2018, the International Atomic Energy Agency had extensive inspection powers that it used to verify Tehran’s compliance with strict enrichment limits. Since 2019, Iran has responded to US ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions by boosting the nuclear program far beyond JCPOA limits, with some estimates suggesting that the country’s nuclear weapon breakout time is “just a week”.

Zarif’s Monday message seemed to be mirroring Netanyahu's years-long series of videos addressed directly to Iranians. In his latest message released last Tuesday, Netanyahu said Iran's clerical rulers fear their own people more than anything.

"There’s one thing Khamenei's regime fears more than Israel. It’s you – the people of Iran. They spend so much time and money trying to crush your hopes and curb your dreams," he added. "Don't let your dreams die. Don't lose hope and know that Israel and others in the free world stand with you.”

Zarif, who is known as the architect of the JCPOA, is defending the nuclear deal at a time when his government is expressing its willingness to resume negotiations over its nuclear program as US President-elect Trump is expected to restore his so-called maximum pressure policy against Tehran.

France, Britain, Germany, and the United States are expected to introduce a censure resolution against Iran at the upcoming meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors despite Tehran's threats to retaliate, a German foreign ministry spokesperson confirmed to Iran International on Monday.

The decision by the US and its European allies to move forward with the censure resolution comes despite Iran's threat to retaliate if such a resolution is adopted.

Iran allowed Grossi and his team to tour Fordow and Natanz, two key nuclear sites, on Friday apparently in hopes that it would convince the Board of Governors not to move forward with the censure resolution. However, that strategy does not seem to have worked.

“Iran has not fulfilled its obligations under the NPT and Safeguards Agreements. The recent visit of IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi to Tehran has not changed this assessment," the German foreign ministry spokesperson told Iran International.