From 1996 To Now: Netanyahu's Decades-Long Warnings That Iran Is Nearing Nuclear Weapon

News18

18-06-2025

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The video, compiled by American broadcaster CNN, has been widely shared on social media
A video compiling nearly three decades of statements by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning that Iran is close to developing nuclear weapons has gone viral on social media.
The one-minute-ten-second clip showcases Netanyahu making repeated claims dating back to 1996, most delivered on major global platforms.
The video, compiled by American broadcaster CNN, has been widely shared on social media.
As per the video, the first such statement was made in October 1996, during Netanyahu's first term as Prime Minister. In it, he warned, 'The deadline for attaining this goal is getting extremely close."
Since then, similar claims were made in 2002, 2012, 2015, and most recently on 13 June 2025 — the day Israel launched strikes on Iranian nuclear and military facilities.
pic.twitter.com/Z40kvDjm5E — BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) June 18, 2025
The timing of the video's resurgence is significant, as Israel and Iran are currently locked in their most intense military exchange in history. The latest conflict, now in its sixth day, began with Israeli strikes on Iranian sites, which Israel said were aimed at halting Iran's nuclear ambitions. Iran has since retaliated.
A decade later, in a widely publicised speech at the UN in September 2012, he claimed, 'By next spring, at most by next summer, at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage… It's only a few months, possibly a few weeks, before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb."
In March 2015, Netanyahu warned, 'The foremost sponsor of global terrorism could be weeks away from having enough enriched uranium for an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons." Later that year, in October, he added, 'That would place a militant Islamic terror regime weeks away from having the fissile material for an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs."
His most recent comment, made on 13 June 2025, echoed the same concern: 'If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. It could be a year, it could be within a few months, less than a year."
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