Iran nuclear talks: Israel concerned lifting of sanctions will bring everything down He added: "The prime minister believes that it is because of the pressure that Iran has come to the negotiating table and if you follow through, you can peacefully dismantle their programme. But by taking the pressure off, you are making a peaceful solution impossible. This belief that easing sanctions is fundamentally flawed explains the vehemence of Mr Netanyahu's criticism of America on Friday, when he called the purported interim agreement "the deal of the century" for Iran and said Israel would not be bound by it. Mr Netanyahu had earlier told a group of US Congressmen that he was "stunned" by the contours of the agreement emerging from Geneva. Israeli officials are particularly scathing of the proposal for Iran to stop enriching uranium to 20 per cent purity - close to weapons grade - which they say is "meaningless" given the country's technical capacity. We are not looking for a little bit of movement from Iran and as a result you get a little bit of sanctions relief. It doesn't work like that," said the official. An acceptable interim deal from Israel's perspective would have been an agreement not to impose further sanctions in exchange for an Iranian commitment to stop enriching uranium altogether. "If the Iranians freeze their programme, stop enriching uranium, stop work on the plutonium reactor at Arak, we could say 'we will stop increasing the pressure, stop new sanctions'," the official said. We think that's a fair deal. That could have been the framework of an interim agreement. Instead, Israel fears that America and its allies will squander the leverage they have painstakingly acquired over years of building the edifice of sanctions, in return for Iranian concessions that fall well short of genuinely freezing its nuclear programme. As Mr Netanyahu's language made plain yesterday, Israel fears that America's diplomacy towards Iran is going off the rails.