Summary Netanyahu says the looming agreement is bad and dangerous".
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel was pulling out all the stops Sunday to avert what it considers a looming "bad and dangerous" deal with Iran over its nuclear programme, including using its influence in the US Congress.
The diplomatic offensive was aimed at the world powers engaged in negotiations with Tehran, after three days of talks in Geneva ended early Sunday without a deal.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he spoke to the US, Russian, French, German and British leaders -- five of the six world powers negotiating with Iran -- and "told them that according to the information reaching Israel, the looming agreement is bad and dangerous".
According to Netanyahu, the mooted deal would remove sanctions on Iran while still enabling the Islamic republic to enrich uranium and advance works on a plutonium reactor.
"I asked them what was the rush? I suggested they wait, and seriously consider things," he said at the opening of Israel's weekly cabinet meeting.
"I hope they reach a good agreement, and we will do all we can to convince world powers to avoid a bad deal." Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said earlier he would lobby Congress.
"Before the talks resume, we will lobby dozens of members of the US Congress to whom I will personally explain during a visit beginning on Tuesday that Israel's security is in jeopardy," he told army radio.
Later on Sunday, Netanyahu was also to address the general assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America and, according to the Jerusalem Post, directly appeal to the American public in a televised interview with CBS's Face the Nation.
Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Home Front Minister Gilad Erdan late Saturday all issued statements calling for world powers not to rush into an agreement.
Yaalon called the accord believed to be in the works "a historical mistake", and Livni said that "a much more favourable agreement could be signed".
Erdan said: "The pressure is showing results -- it would be a grave mistake to give the Iranians what they wanted now."
Significant progress in Geneva: diplomats
Netanyahu spoke at a special session hold Sunday in the southern town of Sde Boker where Israel's founding prime minister David Ben Gurion is buried.
His remarks came after Iran and world powers failed to reach a deal on Tehran's nuclear programme, dashing hopes of an immediate agreement in the decade-old standoff.
However, diplomats also said significant progress had been made in the marathon negotiations and that talks would resume in Geneva on November 20.
Bennett said there were "differences" within US President Barack Obama's administration on reaching a deal with Iran.
"If in 10 years an atomic bomb hidden in a suitcase explodes in New York, or a nuclear missile hits Rome, one could say it is because of concessions that would have been made" to Iran, he said.
Tensions between Israel and Washington were running high after Netanyahu on Friday publicly slammed the mooted interim deal and urged US Secretary of State John Kerry "not to rush and sign".
Israeli media reported on Sunday that a delegation of senior American officials headed by lead US negotiator to the Iran talks, Wendy Sherman, was on its way to Israel to update Netanyahu.
Israel's deputy defence minister, Danny Danon, told public radio on Sunday: "In another two and a half years there will be someone else in the White House, but we will still be here.
"If we have no choice we will act -- that's why Israel has an air force," he added.
UN Security Council permanent members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany, are negotiating with Iran, which denies its programme aims to develop nuclear weapons.
Israel, the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, insists Iran must be prevented from reaching a military nuclear capability at any cost, and it has refused to rule out pre-emptive military action.
