Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) meeting with Ray Mabus, Secretary of the United States Navy in 2010. Photo: wiki commons.

Speaking to the Israeli parliament on Wednesday, the country’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he sees his current situation as similar to Manachem Begin’s in 1981.

Begin was Israel’s Prime Minister when he launched “Operation Opera”, sending the Israeli Air Force to destroy Iraq’s nuclear reactor, which was believed to be reaching a critical stage at the time of the Israeli strike.

“He was well aware of international criticism, including from the United States our friends. He did his duty…and in time it became clear that our relations with the United States not only did not hurt, but only tightened,”  Netanyahu told the Israeli Knesset.

Part of that international criticism included a condemnation from the UN Security Council, which came two months after the Israeli strike.

Referring to Israel in 1982, Saddam Hussein said “technically, they are right in all of their attempts to harm Iraq,” according to papers retrieved by American forces following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

“Once Iraq walks out victorious, there will not be any Israel,” Hussein said, discussing what he believed would be Iraq’s win over Iran in the Iran-Iraq war which lasted from 1980-1988.  The conflicted ended in a UN brokered ceasefire.