YERUSHALAYIM -

Wednesday, May 2, 2018 at 4:26 am |

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu displaying some of the secret Iranian nuclear documents obtained by Israel, at a press conference at the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, Monday. (Reuters/Amir Cohen)

Iran is a “laughingstock” in the international community, a report in Ma’ariv quoted United Nations diplomats as saying. According to the report, the presentation of a huge trove of documents and other material relating to Iran’s nuclear development program casts the Islamist nation in a very poor light – if not for misleading the international community on its nuclear program, then for its failure to prevent the robbery of such a large amount of material from right under its nose.

“This is a shameful embarrassment for the Iranian regime,” the report quoted a senior U.N. diplomat as saying. “Bad enough that the material was stolen, but that it was taken by Israel, Iran’s mortal enemy, is an embarrassment and shame they will never live down.”

On the other hand, the report said, the feeling among diplomats is that the Mossad operation to remove the material from Iran has significantly enhanced the already legendary reputation of Israel’s spy organization. “This is an amazing intelligence achievement,” the report quoted diplomats as saying. “This operation will make Israel’s enemies think twice before taking it on – and that goes for enemies in the region and around the world. I don’t know who killed the senior Hamas engineer al-Batsh last weekend in Malaysia, but it is clear that if the Mossad had wanted to do that, it could have done so.”

Meanwhile, Channel 20 reported Tuesday night that the Mossad had cleared the release of the information that Netanyahu presented in his speech Monday night, and that the revelation of the existence of the archive did not in any way jeopardize Israel’s intelligence efforts. Members of the opposition, including former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, had claimed that the revelations somehow compromised the Mossad’s ability to carry out such operations, but the organization, quoted on Channel 20, said that this was not the case.