Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz on Monday urged the international community to step up pressure on Iran, calling the Islamic Republic a “global” challenge and a direct threat to Israel, as he responded to a JNS question at his party’s faction meeting in the Knesset.
“It seems as if the president of Iran is actually admitting that Iran is indeed what I said about it,” Gantz, a former Israeli defense minister and IDF chief, said in response to a question about Masoud Pezeshkian’s recent statement that his country is at war with the West.
In an interview published on Saturday, Pezeshkian told an official publication of the Islamic Republic that, “In my opinion, we are in a full-fledged war with America, Israel and Europe. They do not want our country to stand on its feet.”
Gantz added that Israel knows how to defend itself but cannot confront the threat alone. He called on regional states and world powers to act through sanctions, diplomatic isolation, intelligence activity, sustained pressure and, if necessary, military action “to make sure it doesn’t go back to nuclear.”
Separately, the chairman of another opposition party, Yisrael Beiteinu head Avigdor Liberman, also a former defense minister, told JNS at his faction meeting that Israel must “reach a coordination of positions with the United States” on Iran policy, calling it one of the key tasks facing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a meeting scheduled for later Monday with President Donald Trump in Florida.
Netanyahu warned last week of a “very severe response” should Iran take action against Israel, while emphasizing that the Jewish state is “not seeking confrontation.”
The premier acknowledged recent Iranian “exercises,” referring to an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps missile drill that, according to Axios, Jerusalem warned the Trump administration could be a cover for a strike on Israel.
Netanyahu said that there were “great achievements” during the 12-day war with Iran in June, stressing, however, that “our basic expectations from Iran have not changed, the level of enrichment and other activities, the ending of the proxy wars against us. ...
“Obviously, it will be an item in our discussions [with the U.S.], but I have to tell you that I think the focus will be on Gaza, the next stage, and on other issues that engage us with the other H’s. We have Hamas, but we also have Hezbollah, and our desire to see a stable and sovereign Lebanon. And of course the Houthis as well that are blocking international shipping that affects Greece, that affects Cyprus, and affects us as well,” the Israeli prime minister said.
