Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reacted Sunday to threatening statements made on Saturday by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s ‘supreme leader,’ and said that the crisis over Iranian nuclear ambitions was at a critical moment.

“Only yesterday,” he told the Likud central committee convention, “the leader of Iran again called for the destruction of Israel. We hear about reforms in Iran. In the last year alone, there has been a deterioration in human rights, in elimination of citizens. And now Iran expects that the powers will present it with a surrender agreement in which Iran continues its aggression, and it will receive nuclear weapons.

“We are at critical moments and the powers must decide,” he said, regarding the nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1. “Israel will object to any that will allow Iran to be a nulcear threshhold state. Israel always reserves the right to defend itself, that is the great right we realized when we established the state of Israel.”

Regarding the violence in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said he had given instructions “to increase the number of police in the city and add various security means, pass new legislation and enforce the law with determination.”

“I gave instructions to pass what is needed in order to demolish the homes of terrorists, distance inciting elements, and revoke the citizenship of those who call for our destruction,” he said.