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The call is growing for mandatory Holocaust education in the province of Quebec
For many Quebec students, the Holocaust is a remote concept, one which is barely connected to their lives or worldviews.
That’s problematic, says Marcy Bruck, communications director of the Montreal-based Foundation for Genocide Education. In some schools she says, “they might just read Anne Frank and that’s it,” even though “Grade 6 is an excellent entry point” for more profound learning.
Ontario announced last year it would make Holocaust education mandatory starting in Grade 6, expanding it in Grade 10 history next fall to link the Holocaust to extremism and antisemitism, with additional teacher training. In November 2023, Alberta also made Holocaust education mandatory in social studies, following British Columbia’s announcement to include it in the K-12 curriculum next school year.
In Quebec, the Foundation for Genocide Education and others continue to lobby for greater space in the curriculum. “Our position is clear,” said foundation president Heidi Berger. “We believe strongly that this education is more important than ever, in light of the alarming rise in antisemitism in Canada since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians, and that it must be made a mandatory part of the school curriculum. Learning this history develops critical thinking and empathy and promotes respect for diversity.”
Last year, the foundation surveyed 200 Canadian secondary social science and history teachers, and found that 72 percent believe there is greater urgency for it, “yet only 50 percent said their students are knowledgeable on the subject,” added Berger, “and more worrying, only 46 percent of teachers in Quebec said education on the Holocaust and other genocides is currently included in their school’s curriculum.”
Quebec City’s assertion is that it is addressed in existing courses. Ministry spokesperson Esther Chouinard told The CJN “the concept of genocide” is studied in three high school social sciences programs. “First, the concept is integrated into the History and Citizenship Education program in the first cycle (grades 7 and 8),” specifically with content such as ‘Auschwitz’ or the ‘Nuremberg Laws’, then in the 20th Century History program in Cycle 2 (grades 10 and 11) in the theme of crises and conflicts. Genocides are also studied in the Contemporary World program she says, which aims “to lead students to grasp the complexity of today’s world and open up to the diversity of societies that make it up by studying different problems and issues of the contemporary world, including tensions and conflicts.”
The call for mandatory Holocaust education is growing, as school boards and educators find ways to incorporate it into existing curricula. At the English Montreal School Board, Quebec’s largest board, age-appropriate materials have been taught for years, using visits to the Montreal Holocaust Museum (MHM), speakers, and lessons integrated into Language Arts, History, and Art. On Oct. 3, 2023, the board formally asked the education ministry to make it mandatory, EMSB chair Joe Ortona telling The CJN a year later “if they don’t do it, we will.”
Last month, Federation CJA gave a $50,000 grant to the EMSB to continue and bolster its Holocaust education program. “Given the climate of antisemitism in the world and Montreal at this time,” stated Federation CJA president Yair Szlak in a release, “we believe this is an opportune moment to ensure that high school students, in particular, are properly educated about what happened in the Holocaust and the roots of antisemitism.”
Montreal lawyer Hélène Poussard’s ignorant statements show why Holocaust education is needed.
CIJA is calling on the government of Quebec to include #Holocaust and #antisemitism awareness in its educational curriculum. https://t.co/e3oVn4baIX@FederationCJA
— CIJA (@CIJAinfo) July 12, 2022
The board’s main focus is on the museum, spokesperson Mike Cohen told The CJN. “But it is left up to us to use the funds in the best way. Between buses, admission and speaker, each visit to the museum is expensive but invaluable. We also bring speakers to schools, run a special website and have a podcast.”
Studying the Holocaust is more urgent today, says Ortona. “These initiatives have been ongoing but became more consistent and continuous since last year, with the explosion of antisemitism across the world and particularly in Canada and Montreal.
“I have heard from many students and staff who visited the museum and spoke to survivors. Most are not Jewish and have not been exposed to this subject. It had a tremendous impact, and I know this will follow them after their high school days are behind them.”
The Montreal Holocaust Museum is actively training educators, offering workshops, visits and tailored teaching guides and resources for each province’s curriculum. “Imagine if this was taught incorrectly, or teachers didn’t understand the really complex history,” says spokesperson Sarah Fogg. “That is why our work has been rooted in teacher training… Obviously we would welcome it being mandated in the province, but it is also really important to mandate teacher training.”
The MHM is seeing increased engagement and interest from educators to work with the museum and others to bring lessons and knowledge to students. Nearly 2,500 teachers from French, English, private and public sectors have participated in 50 museum workshops and conferences over the last five years.
The government she says, should turn to experts, “to get these teachers the training they need alongside organizations like ours who have pedagogical expertise, resources, tools and collections. That is crucial.” The museum’s move next year to the newly constructed, much larger space on Saint-Laurent Boulevard in the heart of the city will allow more such activities.
United Against Hate Canada (UAHC) director Marvin Rotrand began lobbying provinces when he was national director of B’nai Brith’s League for Human Rights and says, “Ontario is the gold standard.” Rotrand wrote to all 125 Quebec MNAs, urging them to follow Ontario’s lead. Despite other provinces’ moves he told The CJN, “We have made no progress in Quebec” he says, “where it remains possible for students to graduate with no Holocaust education… Quebec has among the weakest Holocaust education curriculum in the country.”
“Making Holocaust education mandatory reduces hate incidents targeting other racial and religious minorities,” he says. “Research clearly shows that in U.S. states with mandated Holocaust education, antisemitic crimes dropped by 55 percent. Crimes against Black, LGBTQ2+, Latino and Muslim communities also fell.”
Thank you Councillor @SonnyMtl for your leadership supporting @bnaibrithcanada request to #Quebec to follow #Ontarion and introduce mandatory #Holocaust education in primary school: Moroz moves motion calling for compulsory Holocaust education https://t.co/2xgIJBj0qO #cdnpoli
— Marvin Rotrand (@MarvinRotrand) October 2, 2023
Exactly, says Fogg, pointing to the Reality Check 2023 study looking at the effect of Holocaust education on youth.
Among key findings of the survey of 1,500 American post-secondary students, was that those receiving Holocaust education in high school were significantly more likely to be tolerant of others with different beliefs; open to having their own views challenged; able to discuss and negotiate controversial issues; and were more comfortable with people of a different race or sexual orientation. Not only were they more likely to report more tolerant and pluralistic attitudes and challenge incorrect or biased information, they were less likely to be a bystander to online harassment.
Sandra Banon doesn’t need statistics, just some good books. The EMSB French teacher has taught Holocaust lessons for more than a decade to Grade 6 students, often buttressed with museum visits. “As long as classes are prepared, then tour guides make it a more interactive, meaningful experience.” That means talking about pre-war discrimination and stigmatization of Jews wherever it happened. “Showing a yellow star on a smart board is one thing, but after a proper lesson and they see one on display at the museum, they immediately understand its origin and the context, so the impact is more significant.”
She uses stories and activities in French and art classes based on the book Hana’s Suitcase and was awarded a scholarship to learn more at Yad Vashem in Israel. “It’s absolutely worth the effort,” insists Banon, who met students years later who thanked her for introducing them to this part of history. “They were more aware in secondary when they were introduced to other, more horrific aspects of the story, and more prepared to go deeper and be more open-minded.”
EMSB commissioner Julien Feldman says young people need tools “to confront irrational sentiments they encounter at school and online everyday, especially antisemitism, racism and discrimination. We see Holocaust distortion running rampant online, especially among adults who are vulnerable to propaganda and conspiracy theories – because they have no grounding in authentic history.”
In Quebec schools overall, there is only sporadic mention of the Holocaust and genocide adds Berger, “to illustrate other concepts such as tensions and conflicts, justice and civil rights, while school boards such as the EMSB have committed themselves to taking on this education, as well as dedicated individual teachers.”
What’s needed says Bruck, is a separate course, “or separate components of existing courses, a day dedicated to Holocaust studies. Make it mandatory as part of the course where they discussed the Holocaust in and of itself.” Feldman agrees, saying students also need to hear and understand Canada’s part, including “our policy of sealing our borders to refugees during the Nazi era.”
The Foundation for Genocide Education, whose interactive Studying Genocide guide is available in French and English to every Quebec high school reaching over 300,000 students, met with Education Minister Bernard Drainville last spring to push for mandatory Holocaust education.
A warm reception notwithstanding, the official position is that it’s already taught in some way. “They haven’t closed the door” says Bruck. “I don’t know if they’ll make it mandatory, but there’s definitely effort to make it more prominent in the existing curriculum… We continue to dialogue with them.”
‘Shocking to see’: Video shows Quebec students giving Nazi salute during class https://t.co/9t11me4p7f
— CTV Montreal (@CTVMontreal) May 24, 2023
Shortly after the June 2023 case involving a group of Grade 7 students recorded performing Nazi salutes and playing Nazi military music in a Quebec classroom, Rotrand urged Drainville to act, as students’ obliviousness to the impact of their gestures illustrated why starting in Grade 6 is a good idea. That same month, the minister’s office told French-language news it would not follow Ontario’s lead.
Drainville and his ministry are currently mired in numerous challenges with school infrastructure, teacher shortages, and secularism issues, particularly following reports of religious interference in Montreal-area schools, mainly within the Centre de services scolaire de Montréal (CSSDM), Quebec’s largest French board.
Bruck says it would serve Quebec well to make Holocaust and genocide education part of its Culture and Citizenship program. “It will show how open society is, especially in terms of what’s been going on in Quebec of late, and the explosion in antisemitism in Montreal.”
At the Lester B. Pearson School Board, the island’s second-largest school board serving the western part of greater Montreal, the Holocaust is taught within the context of the Quebec Education Program, spokesperson Darren Becker told The CJN. “It would be covered in Grades 8 and 11 history,” adding, “several of our high school teachers recently attended a workshop hosted at the Holocaust Museum in Montreal to provide them with curricular resources.”
Asked what Holocaust material is taught in any of their 185 schools, CSSDM spokesperson Alain Perron told The CJN, “the Centre de services scolaire de Montréal applies the educational program of the Quebec Ministry of Education. Have a nice day.”
The post The call is growing for mandatory Holocaust education in the province of Quebec appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Global Antisemitic Incidents Decreased in 2024 From Post-Oct. 7 Surge but Remain Alarmingly High, New Study Finds
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
Antisemitic incidents worldwide decreased in 2024 following the record surge that followed the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, but they remain significantly higher than levels recorded prior to the attack, according to a new report published on Wednesday.
Just hours before the start of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day on Wednesday night, Tel Aviv University’s Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, in collaboration with the Irwin Cotler Institute for Democracy, Human Rights, and Justice, released its Annual Antisemitism Worldwide Report, which focuses on anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2024.
“Antisemitism is not just a problem of the past or a fringe issue,” said Professor Uriya Shavit, the report’s editor. “It is a mirror to our societies. And in 2024, that reflection is still deeply troubling.”
The 160-page study revealed that anti-Jewish hatred, which spiked in the wake of the Hamas onslaught, continues to persist across continents a year and a half into the ongoing Gaza conflict.
“Contrary to popular belief, the report’s findings indicate that the wave of antisemitism did not steadily intensify due to the war in Gaza and the humanitarian disaster there,” Shavit said. “The peak was in October-December 2023, and a year later, a sharp decline in the number of incidents was noted almost everywhere.”
“The sad truth is that antisemitism reared its head at the moment when the Jewish state appeared weaker than ever and under existential threat,” he continued.
Australia saw the most significant rise in anti-Jewish incidents, with 1,713 recorded in 2024, compared to 1,200 in 2023 and 490 in 2022.
Despite the sharp surge in anti-Jewish hate following the Oct. 7 attacks, Australia recorded 478 incidents between October and December 2024, a notable drop from the 827 incidents reported during the same period in 2023.
A rise in antisemitism compared to pre-war norms continued into this year. In February, for example, Australia experienced a scandal in which two nurses were caught on video vowing to kill Israeli patients, prompting outrage from authorities. After the video went viral, both nurses were suspended and permanently barred from employment within the New South Wales state health system. They were later charged with crimes.
The United States also saw notable increases in anti-Jewish incidents, especially in cities like Chicago, Denver, and Austin. The Anti-Defamation League released its own report on Tuesday showing that antisemitism in the US surged to break “all previous annual records” in 2024, with the civil rights group recording 9,354 antisemitic incidents last year.
In New York, the city with the world’s largest Jewish population outside of Israel, police recorded 344 antisemitic hate crimes in 2024, up from 325 in 2023 and 264 in 2022. Last month, Jews were the targets of more hate crimes than any other group, according to police data.
However, between October and December 2024, New York saw 68 antisemitic incidents, a sharp decline from the 159 incidents recorded in the same months of 2023.
Canada recorded a record-breaking 6,219 anti-Jewish incidents in 2024, up from 5,791 the previous year. Although members of the Jewish community make up less than 1 percent of the country’s population, they were targeted in one-fifth of all hate crimes.
“Around the world, levels of antisemitism remain significantly higher compared to the period before Oct. 7,” Shavit said in a statement.
In Europe, Italy experienced a sharp rise in anti-Jewish hate, with 877 incidents reported in 2024 — nearly double the 454 recorded in 2023.
Switzerland and Spain both saw a rise in antisemitic activity in 2024. For example, nearly 2,000 antisemitic incidents were reported in French-speaking Switzerland last year — an increase of 90 percent from 2023. The German-, Italian-, and Romansh-speaking regions recorded a 43 percent rise compared to 2023 and a staggering 287 percent increase compared to 2022.
One of the most notorious recent cases was the Zurich attempted murder, in which an Orthodox Jewish man was stabbed and left with life-threatening injuries by a Swiss teenager, an Islamic State supporter of Tunisian origin.
On the other hand, France reported an overall decline in antisemitic incidents in 2024, but there was a concerning rise in physical assaults. The total number of antisemitic outrages last year was a slight dip from 2023’s record total of 1,676, but it marked a striking increase from the 436 antisemitic acts recorded in 2022.
Last week, a Jewish man wearing a Star of David pendant was brutally attacked and called a “dirty Jew” in Villeurbanne, a city in eastern France that is home to the country’s second-largest Jewish community. In another egregious attack that garnered international headlines, a 12-year-old Jewish girl was raped by three Muslim boys in a Paris suburb last year. The child told investigators that the assailants called her a “dirty Jew” and hurled other antisemitic comments at her during the attack.
In the United Kingdom, 3,528 antisemitic incidents were recorded in 2024, down from 4,103 in 2023 and 1,662 in 2022. The country also saw a sharp decline in October, with 310 incidents reported in 2024, compared to 1,389 in the same month of 2023.
Despite recording an 18 percent drop in anti-Jewish hate crimes from the previous year’s all-time high, the UK still experienced its second worst year for antisemitism in 2024.
In Germany, 5,177 antisemitic incidents were recorded in 2024, down from 5,671 in 2023 and 2,811 in 2022. During the October-December period, 671 incidents were reported in 2024, a significant decrease from 3,163 in the same period of 2023.
In South America, both Argentina and Brazil experienced increased antisemitic activity in 2024. For example, Argentina saw a 44 percent rise in reported anti-Jewish hate crimes compared to the previous year.
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Celebrities Help ‘Spotlight’ Holocaust Survivors, Their Testimonies in New NYC Portrait Exhibit
Some of the portraits included in “Borrowed Spotlight” that feature Jennifer Garner, Nicola Peltz Beckham, and David Schwimmer with Holocaust survivors. Photo: Shiryn Ghermezian/The Algemeiner
A new portrait series and exhibition that opened in New York City on Tuesday showcases Holocaust survivors paired up with some of the most notable figures in media, fashion, and entertainment, in an effort to preserve survivor testimonies and amplify their stories, as well as to help combat antisemitism.
The portraits in “Borrowed Spotlight,” which is on display at the Detour Gallery, were captured by South African-born, renowned fashion photographer Bryce Thompson. They debuted ahead of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah), which begins on Wednesday night and marks 80 years since the end of World War II. The photographs feature portraits of survivors alongside prominent Jewish and non-Jewish figures such as Cindy Crawford, Jennifer Garner, Billy Porter, Wolf Blitzer, Chelsea Handler, Jenna Dewan, Barbara Corcoran, Nicola Peltz Beckham, Scooter Braun, David Schwimmer, Martha Grant, Ashley Benson, Josh Peck, George Stephanopoulos, Sheryl Sandberg, and Julius Erving.
The recognizable names heard testimonies from the Holocaust survivor they were paired with and then posed for photographs together with the survivor. A total of 18 celebrity and Holocaust survivor-paired portraits are in the series, and they were all taken by Thompson in 2023 and 2024. The exhibit features these large-scale portraits but also additional behind-the-scenes photos and other elements that aim to educate and inspire the public.
One section showcases notes written by some of the Holocaust survivors about life, hope, and reflection. In one such note that was on display, Holocaust survivor Risa Igelfeld, who is 107 years old, wrote: “I am writing this to urge the world to bring only positive thoughts to one another and let love flow.”
“Holocaust survivors are few and far between. Special people with special stories, and I really felt like they need to be told. [And] firsthand was really important to me,” Thompson, who is not Jewish, told the large crowd that attended the exhibit’s opening on Tuesday night. “Hearing a story from someone who has told a story is not the same as sitting in a room with someone who lived through something.”
Thompson told The Algemeiner he was originally hoping to only include non-Jewish celebrities in the portraits because “I wanted non-Jewish people standing up for Jewish people.” But once the project started, Jewish celebrities reached out to him and said they wanted to participate in the portrait series. He also admitted that he had a hard time getting some celebrities on board for the project.
“It wasn’t as easy as I had hoped, but the ones who did say ‘yes’ said [it] willingly and happily, and we were lucky to have them,” he said.
The Holocaust survivors in the series include natives of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Belgium, Romania, and one man who was born in a Budapest ghetto basement during a bombing raid in 1944. The photographs feature survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, and one person who survived 12 concentration camps. After surviving the genocide of World War II, some of these Holocaust survivors went on to have large families, become graduates of MIT, rocket designers, entertainment lawyers, writers, acclaimed sculptors, tailors, members of the Israeli Air Force, doctors of clinical psychology, and Holocaust educators. The photo series also highlights a survivor of the Farhud pogrom that targeted Jews in Baghdad, Iraq.
The goal of the portrait series and exhibit is to take the spotlight off the featured celebrities and instead use it shed some light on the Holocaust survivors, to help magnify their testimonies and help them reach a larger audience, especially the next generation. “In these pairings, recognition is redirected, and the attention so often given to fame is instead used to illuminate history,” read a description of the exhibit that was on display at its entrance. “The result is a series of intimate portraits and conversations where past and present collide, where silence is broken, and where remembrance becomes an act of defiance against forgetting.”
Photo: Sabrina Steck
Brazilian model Daniela Braga is featured in the portrait series alongside Czech Holocaust survivor Gabriella Karin, who survived the war as a teenager by hiding in the one-bedroom apartment of a non-Jewish young lawyer who was located directly across the street from the Nazi-Slovak Gestapo. Born and raised Catholic, Braga converted to Judaism and her husband is Jewish. She told The Algemeiner that hearing about Karin’s experience during the Holocaust made her “very emotional because growing up in Brazil, we learned just a little bit about the Holocaust and World War II. But to have the experience to actually talk to someone who lived through it, it’s something so mind-blowing to me.”
“I could hear the pain in her voice,” Braga added. “It made me happy in the end that she’s alive and is able to tell her story to all of us, to share with other people. When we say, ‘Never Again,’ it really has to be never again.”
Braga also told The Algemeiner she met a Jewish people for the first time ever when she moved to New York 15 years ago.
“I’ve been immersed in this [Jewish] culture for 15 years. The Jewish culture is something very close to my heart. Anything that I can do to help the Jewish community, I will do it,” she said while explaining why she wanted to participate in Thompson’s portrait series.
Jewish actress Kat Graham is photographed in the portrait series with Holocaust survivor Yetta Kana. Graham spoke at the exhibit opening and said Thompson’s portraits capture “truth, resilience, and humanity.” The “Vampire Diaries” actress – whose maternal grandmother fled Europe during the Holocaust – additionally said the photographs “build a bridge between generations; a conversation between memory and legacy.”
“This project is about remembrance but it’s also about responsibility,” she told the crowd. “We are the torchbearers now. It is up to us to keep these stories alive and to ensure that history is never forgotten. That the voices of survivors, like Yetta, are not only heard, but felt. I invite you to see, to feel, and to carry these faces with you, long after you leave … Let’s never forget.”
The opening of “Borrowed Spotlight” on Tuesday night was attended by other well-known figures including Gregg Sulkin, Remi Bader, Moti Ankari, and “Real Housewives of New Jersey” stars Margaret Josephs, Melissa Gorga, and Lexi Barbuto. Sulkin, who is Jewish, told The Algemeiner he wanted to be in the portrait series but ultimately was unable to participate in Thompson’s project because of scheduling conflicts.
The photographs in the exhibit, as well as additional ones not on display, were compiled into a coffee table book available for purchase that features a foreword by Crawford. Proceeds from the book sales will support efforts to educate younger generations about the Holocaust. Proceeds from a private auction on Monday night of select prints in the series will benefit Selfhelp, which provides services and assistance to living Holocaust survivors in New York, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
There are more than 200,000 Holocaust survivors worldwide. Nearly 50 percent of all Holocaust survivors will die within the next six years, while 70 percent will no longer be alive within 10 years, according to a new report released this week by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference). There are estimated to be more than 1,400 alive today around the world who are over 100 years old.
“Borrowed Spotlight” will be open at the Detour Gallery through Sunday.
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Iran Fortifying Buried Nuclear Sites as Talks With US Continue, Report Says
Military personnel stand guard at a nuclear facility in the Zardanjan area of Isfahan, Iran, April 19, 2024, in this screengrab taken from video. Photo: WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran is ringing two deeply buried tunnel complexes with a massive security perimeter linked to its main nuclear complex, a report said Wednesday, amid US and Israeli threats of attack.
The Institute for Science and International Security released its report based on recent satellite imagery as the US and Iran prepare to hold a third round of talks this weekend on a possible deal to reimpose restraints on Tehran’s uranium enrichment program.
US President Donald Trump, who pulled the US out of a 2015 pact designed to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons, has threatened to bomb Iran unless a deal is quickly reached that would ensure that same goal.
Trump’s withdrawal prompted Iran to breach many of the pact’s restraints. Western powers suspect it is pursuing the capability to assemble a nuclear weapon through enrichment of uranium to high fissile purity, which Tehran denies.
David Albright, the institute president, said the new perimeter suggested that the tunnel complexes, under construction beneath Mount Kolang Gaz La for several years, could become operational relatively soon.
Tehran has barred access to the tunnels to inspectors of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who are monitoring its nuclear program.
This has raised concerns that they could be used to store Iran‘s stockpile of highly enriched uranium or undeclared nuclear materials, and advanced centrifuges that could quickly purify enough uranium for a bomb, Albright said.
IAEA Director General Raphael Grossi, on a visit to Washington, told reporters on Wednesday that those possible uses by Iran of the tunnel complexes “cannot be excluded” and the agency has repeatedly raised the issue with Tehran.
Iran, however, rejects an IAEA legal obligation requiring a member state to inform the agency of any intention to set up a nuclear facility even if radioactive materials have not been introduced, he said. “They are telling us, ‘It is none of your business.’”
“It is obvious that this is a place with numerous and important activities” related to Iran‘s nuclear program, Grossi added. “It’s a bit of a ping pong, but the digging continues, the building continues.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, the chief negotiator with the US, said in a post on X in apparent response to the new report that Israel and unnamed “Special Interest groups” were looking to “derail diplomacy.”
Iran has said that advanced centrifuges would be assembled in one complex in place of a facility at the nearby Natanz plant, the centerpiece of its nuclear program, destroyed by sabotage in 2020.
The complexes, Albright said, are being built at depths much greater than Iran‘s deeply buried uranium enrichment facility at Fordow, near the holy city of Qom.
Commercial satellite images taken on March 29 showed hardened entrances to the complexes, high wall panels erected along the verges of a graded road encircling the mountain peak, and excavations for the installation of more panels, the report said.
The north side of the perimeter joins the Natanz plant security ring, it said.
The ongoing construction at the complexes appears to underscore Tehran’s rejection of demands that any talks with the US lead to the total dismantlement of its nuclear program, saying it has the right to peaceful nuclear technology.
Israel has not ruled out a strike on Tehran’s nuclear facilities in coming months, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that any talks must lead to the complete scrapping of Iran‘s program.
Iran‘s nuclear energy chief Mohammad Eslami, referring to concerns about the vulnerability of its nuclear program, on Tuesday appeared to refer to projects such as the construction of the new security perimeter around the tunnel complexes.
“Efforts are ongoing [to] expand protective measures” at nuclear facilities, Eslami was quoted by Iranian state media as saying at an event marking the anniversary of the establishment of Iran‘s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
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