On 20 February 2009 , after being asked to be the prime minister of Israel , Netanyahu described Iran as the greatest threat that Israel has ever faced : " Iran is seeking to obtain a nuclear weapon and constitutes the gravest threat to our existence since the war of independence . " Speaking before the UN General Assembly in New York on 24 September 2009 , Netanyahu expressed a different opinion than Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 's speech at the forum , saying those who believe Tehran is a threat only to Israel are wrong . " The Iranian regime " , he said , " is motivated by fanaticism ... They want to see us go back to medieval times . The struggle against Iran pits civilization against barbarism . This Iranian regime is fueled by extreme fundamentalism . " " By focusing solely on Iran , " columnist Yossi Melman speculated that Netanyahu 's foreign policy , " ... took the Palestinian issue off the world agenda . " After four days of shelling from the Iranian-funded Palestinian Islamic Jihad , Melman asked , " Is it worth initiating a crisis with Iran ? Will the Israeli public be able to cope with Iran 's response ? " According to Uzi Eilam , a retired brigadier general and the ex-director of Israel 's Atomic Energy Commission , Benjamin Netanyahu is using the threat of atomic Iran as a means of reaching his own goals . Directly blaming Netanyahu , he said : " Netanyahu is using the Iranian threat to achieve a variety of political objectives . " He also said : " These declarations are unnecessarily scaring Israel 's citizens , given Israel is not party to the negotiations to determine whether Iran will or will not dismantle its nuclear program . " By 2012 , Netanyahu is reported to have formed a close , confidential relationship with Defense Minister Ehud Barak as the two men consider possible Israeli military action against Iran 's nuclear facilities , following Israel 's established Begin Doctrine . The pair were accused of acting on " messianic " impulses by Yuval Diskin , former head of the Shin Bet , who added that their warmongering rhetoric appealed to " the idiots within the Israeli public " . Diskin 's remarks were supported by former Mossad chief Meir Dagan , who himself had previously said that an attack on Iran was " the stupidest thing I have ever heard " . A few weeks later , the RAND Corporation ( a leading American think-tank that advises the Pentagon ) also openly disagreed with Netanyahu 's belligerent stance : " In doing so , and without naming names , RAND sided with former Mossad chief Meir Dagan and former head of the Shin Bet Yuval Diskin . " Early in 2012 , he used the opening ceremony for Israel 's Holocaust Remembrance Day to warn against the dangers of an Iranian nuclear bomb , saying he was following the example of Jewish leaders during World War II who struggled to raise the alarm about the Nazis ' genocidal intentions . Israeli academic Avner Cohen accused Netanyahu of showing " contempt " for the Holocaust by putting it to " political use " , and former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami similarly condemned Netanyahu 's " vulgar manipulation of the memory of the Holocaust " . Immediately after the 2012 Burgas bus bombing , Netanyahu confirmed that the attack had been undertaken in coordination with Iran
2012 Burgas bus bombing
2012 Burgas bus bombing
Benjamin Netanyahu