The fall of the Islamic Republic is not part of Israel’s objectives for its Iran campaign but would be a welcome byproduct of the military assault, an Israeli government spokesman said on Monday.
As the prime minister said yesterday, it is not the government’s objective to produce regime change, David Mencer, a spokesperson for the National Public Diplomacy Directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office, stressed in response to a question from JNS on Monday afternoon.
However, if the war leads to “the Iranian people shaking off the shackles of this oppressive regime that has oppressed the Iranian people for the past 46, 47 years, that would be a welcome objective,” Mencer said.
The war is aimed at ensuring “that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon, to destroy their enrichment capabilities,” he said. “There is no need for an enrichment capability—zero need, except for a nuclear weapon.”
Jerusalem also seeks to counter the threat posed by Tehran’s ballistic missile program, the “launchers in particular, which is so important, those are our objectives,” Mencer told JNS.
The spokesman was responding to claims by Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu that Jerusalem was working with Iran’s opposition.
“Unlike the Gazan population that supports Hamas and still hasn’t disavowed Hamas, in Iran we know that many of the local people despise the regime,” Eliyahu told i24News earlier on Monday.
“I won’t go into details now; I don’t think it’s right to get into details,” the minister responded when pressed on the issue.
U.S. President Donald Trump overnight on Sunday hinted at the possibility of regime change in Iran, despite other officials in his administration previously ruling out such a move.
“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???” Trump asked on Truth Social.
On June 13, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the London-based Iran International opposition outlet that the regime’s days were numbered, saying the Iranian people could be made “great again.”
“I believe in you. I respect you. I admire you. I know your achievements. I know your potential. I know that Iran can be great again. It was a great civilization, and this theological thuggery that has kidnapped your country will not stand for long, and you are the future, not them,” Netanyahu said in a conversation with anchor Pouria Zeraati.
“A light has been lit—carry it to freedom,” the Israeli leader declared. “Your hour of freedom is near; it’s happening now.”
In an interview with Fox News on June 12, Netanyahu said that regime change “could certainly be the result” of the campaign in Iran.
“The Persian people and the Jewish people have had an ancient friendship that goes back to the times of Cyrus the Great; that could happen again,” Netanyahu told Fox, while saying that “the decision to act, to rise up, at this time is the decision of the Iranian people.”
