Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Iran was behind nearly all of the security threats to the Jewish state and warned that the country’s internal debate over judicial reform would not prevent it from defending itself.
Speaking at the traditional Passover toasts with the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and Israel Defense Forces General Staff Forum, Netanyahu said: “Iran is responsible for 95% of the security threats against us, including those that you deal with both directly and indirectly.”
Addressing the General Staff Forum, he said that “tomorrow, we will sit around the seder table and read: ‘In every generation, there are those who rise up to destroy us.’ ”
This remains true today despite the rise of Zionism and the restoration of Jewish sovereignty, he said.
“But from here, I want to reiterate to the enemies of Israel that they should not err. No debate will prevent us from wielding the sword and shield to defend ourselves and repel any aggression by them in order to ensure the continuity of the Zionist enterprise,” he added.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, referring to Israel’s internal divisions over legal reform, told a group of his country’s officials on Tuesday, “We said a few years ago [2015] that the Zionist regime would not see 25 years from then. They themselves are in a rush and want to leave sooner.”
Israel has reportedly carried out four airstrikes on Iranian targets in Syria in recent days, and on Monday, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed that an unmanned aerial object brought down the previous day after it crossed into Israeli airspace from Syria was most probably of Iranian origin.
Israel has admitted to carrying out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria in the past in order to contain Iran’s efforts to establish itself in the region and transfer sophisticated missile technology to its terror proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Netanyahu has made containing Iran a chief objective of his administration. At his government’s swearing-in ceremony on Dec. 29, he said his new government would focus on three main goals, the first of which would be preventing Iran from “developing an arsenal of atomic weapons that will threaten us and the whole world.”
Israel has been involved in a years-long campaign to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program. At a weekly Cabinet meeting in February, Netanyahu said Israel is ceaselessly confronting Iran’s nefarious activities, as the Islamic Republic’s attempts to attack the Jewish state are unending.
Addressing the General Staff Forum on Tuesday, he said, “I can tell you one thing: There is a limit to the number of miracles that history can grant a nation, and the people of Israel have already received an extra portion of such miracles. Therefore we only have one choice: To stand together, united. I say that together we will stand and together we will continue to be victorious.”
