“We will protect ourselves by ourselves. Even if there is an agreement, we’re not committed to it. We will preserve our freedom to act.”
By LAHAV HARKOV Published: JANUARY 27, 2022 18:00Email Twitter Facebook fb-messenger
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett enters his office this week after an interview with The Jerusalem Post. (photo credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90)
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett enters his office this week after an interview with The Jerusalem Post.
(photo credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90)
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Israel will follow its strategy to combat Iranian aggression regardless of whether world powers reach an agreement with the Islamic Republic in the negotiations in Vienna, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in an interview this week, to be published in full in Friday’s Jerusalem Post.
“The Israeli strategy doesn’t depend on whether there’s an agreement or not,” Bennett stated. “We will protect ourselves by ourselves. Even if there is an agreement, we’re not committed to it. We will preserve our freedom to act.”
Bennett spoke as talks continue with Iran in Vienna to return to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett following an interview with The Jerusalem Post this week. (credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90)
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett following an interview with The Jerusalem Post this week. (credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90)
Bennett said that “we and the Americans don’t see everything eye to eye,” and spoke out against easing sanctions on Iran.
“A deal that will send tens of billions of dollars to this rotten and weak regime will be a mistake because this money will go to terror against IDF soldiers and Americans in the region,” Bennett stated. “When the money enters Iranian coffers, they attack American soldiers…through their proxies.”
Iran is very weak – its currency is depleted, regions of the country lack water and there are large demonstrations against the government – Bennett pointed out, saying Tehran “is playing poker with a very weak hand, but they’re bluffing.”
Israel has relayed the message to its friends in the US and Europe who are negotiating with Iran that the mullahs’ regime should not get “a tailwind of money,” the prime minister said.
“The last thing you do to a terror state like this is to give them tens of billions of dollars,” he stated. “You should do the opposite; you have to weaken them, set a dilemma between the continued pursuit of nuclear weapons or the regime itself.”
One part of Bennett’s strategy is “to keep Iran significantly far from nuclear breakout forever.”
The prime minister repeated his comparison of Iran to an octopus, whose head is in Tehran and whose tentacles surrounding Israel are Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias on Israel’s border with Syria, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and to a lesser extent Hamas in Gaza.
In the past, he said, “Israel fell into the trap and fought the octopus’s tentacles tactically. But the octopus itself is Iran.
“They have no business in our region, 1000 km from home,” Bennett said. “I don’t want to see Iran in Syria or on any border of ours.”
Content retrieved from: https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/article-694773.
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