Prime Minister Yair Lapid affirmed that “Israel is not against any agreement [with Iran]. We are against this agreement, because it is a bad one… In our eyes, it does not meet the standards set by President Biden himself: preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear state. This agreement endangers the independence of the IAEA”. Contending that an agreement would provide “a hundred billion dollars a year that will be used to undermine stability in the Middle East and spread terror around the globe”,  he asserted: “The sweeping removal of sanctions on sectors like banking… means the Iranians will have no problem whatsoever laundering money. Iran will assist other nations facing sanctions to evade them. They will be able to create a direct route for financing terror”. Lapid went on to maintain that “negotiations have reached the point where they [ie, Western powers] must stop and say ‘enough’”, while warning: “If a deal is signed, it does not obligate Israel. We will act to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state. We are not prepared to live with a nuclear threat above our heads from an extremist, violent Islamist regime”.