Published: 19 February 2018
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Netanyahu directly threatened Iran if it continues in its aggression toward Israel. To this he added a threat to the stability of Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria if he continues to help Iran gain a foothold in his country.
With all due respect to the gimmick of showing conference participants part of the downed Iranian drone and to his biting remarks directed at Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, these two statements will certainly be noted and analysed in Tehran and Damascus.
More than a year ago, just after US President Donald Trump was elected, Netanyahu began to slightly change his public tone toward Iran in a series of speeches. Over the months that followed, he pledged that “those who threaten us with annihilation put themselves in peril” and that Israel’s military might “must be able to threaten to destroy those who threaten to destroy us.”
When he met with Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev, he even asked him to convey a message to the Iranians: “Israel isn't a rabbit, it's a tiger. ... The Iranians don't know who they are dealing with, and Iran is putting itself in grave danger."
FULL STORY Netanyahu's drone stunt is a direct threat to Iran and Assad (Haaretz)
Photo: Netanyahu holds what he claims is part of an Iranian drone shot down in Israeli airspace at the Munich Security Conference on February 18 (Lennart Preiss/AFP)
