![John Kerry: Iran Doesn't Want To 'Wipe [Israel] Off The Map' (Getty Images)](https://images.dailycaller.com/image/width=960,height=411,fit=cover,f=auto/https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/GettyImages-482970504-e1438786494877.jpg "John Kerry: Iran Doesn't Want To 'Wipe [Israel] Off The Map' (Getty Images)")
John Kerry told The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg that he doesn’t believe Iran wants to “wipe [Israel] off the map.”
Kerry said that President Obama’s proposed nuclear deal with Iran “is as pro-Israel, as pro-Israel’s security, as it gets.” The Secretary of State claimed he has reviewed the deal “backwards and forwards a hundred times… and I believe that just saying no to this is, in fact, reckless.”
Kerry also rejected the idea that Iranian leaders are actively seeking the destruction of the Jewish state, a popular belief among many Israelis.
KERRY: I think they have a fundamental ideological confrontation with Israel at this particular moment. Whether or not that translates into active steps to, quote, “Wipe it,’ you know —
GOLDBERG: Wipe it off the map
KERRY: I don’t know the answer to that. I haven’t seen anything that says to me — they’ve got 80,000 rockets in Hezbollah pointed at Israel, and any number of choices could have been made. They didn’t make the bomb when they had enough material for 10 to 12. They’ve signed on to an agreement where they say they’ll never try and make one and we have a mechanism in place where we can prove that. So I don’t want to get locked into that debate. I think it’s a waste of time here.