Israel PM: World Must Use Force if Iran Builds Nuclear Bomb

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid chairs the weekly cabinet meeting, in Jerusalem, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. (AP)
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid chairs the weekly cabinet meeting, in Jerusalem, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. (AP)
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Israel PM: World Must Use Force if Iran Builds Nuclear Bomb

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid chairs the weekly cabinet meeting, in Jerusalem, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. (AP)
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid chairs the weekly cabinet meeting, in Jerusalem, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. (AP)

The international community should use military force if Iran develops nuclear weapons, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid told the United Nations on Thursday, as he reiterated support for creation of a "peaceful" Palestinian state.

Israel has been conducting an intense diplomatic offensive in recent months to try to persuade the United States and main European powers such as Britain, France and Germany not to renew the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, AFP said.

For the past 10 days, various officials have suggested the deal -- which US then-president Donald Trump scrapped in 2018 -- might not be renewed until at least mid-November, a deadline that Lapid has tried to use to push the West to impose a tougher approach in their negotiations.

"The only way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is to put a credible military threat on the table," Lapid said in a speech at the UN General Assembly.

Only then can a "longer and stronger deal with them" be negotiated.

"It needs to be made clear to Iran that if it advances its nuclear program, the world will not respond with words, but with military force," he said.

And he made no secret that Israel itself would be willing to engage if it felt threatened.

"We will do whatever it takes," he said. "Iran will not get a nuclear weapon."

A senior US official downplayed any differences between Lapid and President Joe Biden, who has vowed not to let Iran develop an atomic bomb.

Diplomacy is "by far the best way" to achieve that goal, but "as a last resort, he would resort to military force if that's what it took," the official said on condition of anonymity.

From the General Assembly podium, Lapid accused Tehran's leadership of conducting an "orchestra of hate" against Jews, and said Iran's ideologues "hate and kill Muslims who think differently, like Salman Rushdie and Mahsa Amini," the woman whose death after being arrested by Iran's morality policy has triggered widespread protests there.

Israel, which considers Iran its archenemy, also blames Tehran for financing armed movements including the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas.

- Support for two states -
Despite existing "obstacles," he said, "an agreement with the Palestinians, based on two states for two peoples, is the right thing for Israel's security, for Israel's economy and for the future of our children."

Lapid, who is campaigning for November 1 legislative elections, said a large majority of Israelis support a two-state solution, "and I am one of them."

"We have only one condition: that a future Palestinian state be peaceful," said Lapid, whose UN speech drew criticism from his political rivals back home.

Biden, however, said he welcomed Lapid's "courageous" support for a two-state solution.

"I could not agree more," the Democratic president tweeted.

Two days earlier, Biden at the United Nations renewed his backing for the establishment of a Palestinian state but gave no indication of any new peace initiative.

Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations have been stalled since 2014.

The Lapid government's current strategy is to try to support the Palestinian economy, but without embarking on a peace process with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, who is scheduled to address the United Nations Friday.

Israel has occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank since 1967 and from 2007 has imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory controlled by the Hamas group.

Since 2008, Hamas and Israel have waged four wars in which the Islamic Jihad, the second-largest armed movement in Gaza, has also participated.

"Put down your weapons and prove that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not going to take over the Palestinian state you want to create," Lapid said.

"Put down your weapons, and there will be peace."



US Judge Orders Trump Administration to Reinstate Thousands of Fired Workers

US President Donald Trump speaks during his meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 13 March 2025. (EPA)
US President Donald Trump speaks during his meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 13 March 2025. (EPA)
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US Judge Orders Trump Administration to Reinstate Thousands of Fired Workers

US President Donald Trump speaks during his meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 13 March 2025. (EPA)
US President Donald Trump speaks during his meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 13 March 2025. (EPA)

A California federal judge on Thursday ordered six US agencies to reinstate thousands of recently-hired employees who lost their jobs as part of President Donald Trump's purge of the federal workforce.

The ruling by US District Judge William Alsup during a hearing in San Francisco is the most significant blow yet to the effort by Trump and top adviser Elon Musk to drastically shrink the federal bureaucracy. Government agencies are facing a Thursday deadline to submit plans for a second wave of mass layoffs and to slash their budgets.

Alsup's ruling applies to probationary employees at the US Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, Department of Interior and the Treasury Department.

The judge said the US Office of Personnel Management, the human resources department for federal agencies, had improperly ordered those agencies to fire workers en masse even though it lacked the power to do so.

“It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” said Alsup, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton.

Probationary workers typically have less than one year of service in their current roles, though some are longtime federal employees. They have fewer job protections than other government workers but in general can only be fired for performance issues.

Alsup ordered the agencies to reinstate workers who were fired over the last few weeks, pending the outcome of a lawsuit by unions, nonprofit groups, and the state of Washington.

He did not order the 16 other agencies named in the lawsuit to reinstate workers, but said he would promptly issue a written decision that could expand on Thursday's ruling.

A Veterans Affairs spokesperson declined to comment. A Department of Interior spokeswoman said the agency does not comment on litigation over personnel matters.

The White House and the other agencies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The plaintiffs include the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 800,000 federal workers. The union's president, Everett Kelley, in a statement said the decision was an important victory against "an administration hellbent on crippling federal agencies and their work on behalf of the American public."

25,000 WORKERS

Alsup last month had temporarily blocked OPM from ordering agencies to fire probationary employees, but declined at the time to require that fired workers get their jobs back. The plaintiffs subsequently amended their lawsuit to include the agencies that fired probationary workers.

About 25,000 workers across the US government had been fired as of March 5, according to a Reuters tally, and another 75,000 have taken a buyout. The Trump administration has not released statistics on the firings, and it was not immediately clear how many employees could be affected by Thursday's decision.

In the lawsuit before Alsup, the plaintiffs claim the mass firings were unlawful because they were ordered by OPM rather than left to the discretion of individual agencies.

OPM has maintained that it merely asked agencies in a January 20 memo to identify probationary workers and decide which ones were not "mission critical" and could be fired, and did not order them to terminate anyone.

The agency on March 4 revised that memo, adding that it was not directing agencies to take any specific actions with respect to probationary employees.

OPM has pointed to the updated memo and to press releases by agencies as proof that it had no control over agencies' decisions.

Alsup on Thursday told the US Department of Justice lawyer representing OPM, Kelsey Helland, that he did not believe that was true, and scolded the government for not presenting OPM's acting director, Charles Ezell, to testify at the hearing.

“I’ve been practicing or serving in this court for over 50 years and I know how we get at the truth, and you’re not helping me get at the truth. You’re giving me press releases, sham documents,” Alsup said.

Helland said it was common for presidential administrations to prevent high-ranking agency officials from testifying in court, and that the information provided by OPM in court filings was enough to prove that it never ordered agencies to terminate workers.

Along with the lawsuit in California, several other challenges to the mass firings have been filed, including cases by 20 Democrat-led states and a proposed class action by a group of fired workers.

The Merit Systems Protection Board, which reviews federal employees' appeals when they are fired, earlier this month ordered the Agriculture Department to reinstate nearly 6,000 probationary workers at least temporarily.