
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed cautious optimism over the US-Russian deal, which will begin its implementation with Syria reporting on its chemical weapons stock by the end of the week.�
However, he said, the commitments had to backed up by actions, not only in Syria but in Iran as well.
�We hope the understandings bear fruit. Those understandings will be judged by the results,� he said, referring to the total destruction of Syria�s chemical arms, which should take place by mid-2014. �The test of the results also applies to the efforts by the international community to stop Iran�s nuclear armaments. There, too, not words but actions will be the deciding factor.�
Netanyahu added that Israel now needed to have the ability to defend itself more than ever.
�We are now in a different era, in the midst of a regional earthquake, unprecedented since the establishment of the state. We face new threats: missiles, and cyber-weapons of mass destruction,� he said. �Israel will have to be ready to defend itself, by itself, against all threats� That capacity is more important today than ever� and Israel is stronger today than ever.�
President Shimon Peres said �a disarmament agreement backed up by military threat should serve as a lesson to Iranian leaders.�
Both leaders were speaking at a 40-year commemoration at Mount Herzl military cemetery for the Yom Kippur War, which Peres called Israel�s �last great war.�
The president said Syria, which perpetrated a surprise attack on Israel together with Egypt during Judaism�s holiest day in 1973, had�refused to become a partner in peace after the war, and was still paying the price for it today.
He added that Syrian President Bashar Assad had �no choice� but to submit to the chemical arms deal and said�that the US was still ready for a military operation should diplomacy fail.
By The Times of Israel
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