NEW YORK -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may declassify new, revelatory intelligence on Iran and its nuclear program in his speech to the General Assembly on Thursday, according to Danny Danon, Israel's ambassador to the UN.
Speaking with The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, Danon said those watching Netanyahu's speech can expect to learn information beyond what was included in his April 30 announcement of a raid on a storage facility in Tehran stocked with files on the Iranian government's clandestine nuclear weapons program.
"I think the content is important. He views the information that was captured in Tehran as critical," Danon said, replying in the affirmative when asked if new information would be included in the speech.
The ambassador declined, however, to confirm whether new details included in the speech would be sourced from the January raid– an event that reportedly helped US President Donald Trump reach his decision to withdraw from Iran's nuclear agreement with world powers.
"We have a lot of means to capture information, and we will see what he has to say," Danon said. "He will deal with the Iranian issue and he'll keep it interesting."
The Israeli premier is known for using props in his speeches, once famously displaying a cartoon bomb to explain his "red lines" on Iran's nuclear enrichment work.
Both Netanyahu and Abbas are scheduled to address the chamber on Thursday. Danon said that the Israeli team told their American counterparts in New York, in a meeting led by Trump and Netanyahu, that they will respectfully evaluate and engage with the administration's upcoming peace plan– even if they ultimately disagree on some of its content.
Trump said on Wednesday for the first time as president that he preferred a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He hopes to release the plan by the end of the year.
Trump and Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, both spoke to the assembly on Tuesday, trading insults with one another. While Trump accused Iran's leaders of "sowing chaos, death, and destruction" regionwide, Rouhani accused Trump of "authoritarian" and "Nazi" tendencies.
"We used to be the only one in the room speaking about this issue, and here you have the president of the United States representing it on the floor," Danon said, praising Trump for embarking on an economic pressure campaign to compel Iran to change its behavior.
"I think the end goal" of the pressure strategy, he added, "should be that the Iranians understand they cannot continue with their ballistic missile test, acquiring a ballistic missile capabilities. The result will be a better agreement."