Naftali Bennett, the former prime minister of Israel and Netanyahu opponent, was not happy with the Biden administration’s explanation about Iran’s first-ever attack on Israel. Claims that Iran launched its attack as a show for its own people were false, he said, according to news reports.
The Biden administration is also telling Israel not to respond militarily to Iran, something that would be seen as weakness and defeat in the Arab world. Israel is expected to respond by this weekend.
READ: Iran attack on Israel News Briefs
Bennett’s comments come as some in the American administration attempted to downplay the severity of the historic attack.
An image posted by an Iranian of a missile launch toward Israel. Many Iranians took to social media asking Israel to defeat the rulers of Iran.
“When you shoot 350 flying objects timed to hit Israel at the same moment, when you use three fundamentally different weapon types — cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and UAVs — you’re looking to penetrate Israel’s defenses and kill Israelis,” Bennett said.
He directly pushed back against the Biden administration for telling Israel that it got a “win” and that they should take the win. The “win,” according to the Biden administration, was the fact that 99 percent of the projectiles were shot down by Israel and its allies in the region.
“No, it’s NOT a victory,” he wrote. “When a bully tries to hit you 350 times and only succeeds seven time, you’ve NOT won. You don’t win wars just by intercepting your enemy’s hits, nor do you deter it. Your enemy will just try harder with more and better weapons and methods next time.”
He said the only way to deter further aggression is by “exacting a deeply painful price.” Bennett said the attack was a “big mistake” by Iran, which he referred to as “a terror-octopus whose head is Tehran, and its tentacles are in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Gaza.”
“Israel’s strategic mistake for the past 30 years was to play along with this strategy,” he said. “We always fought the octopus’ arms but hardly exacted a price from its Iranian head. This should change now: Hezbollah or Hamas shoots a rocket at Israel? Tehran pays a price.”
Bennett said Israel’s enemy is the Iran’s oppressive government, not the citizens of the country, and that the country will eventually collapse in a similar manner as the Soviet Union did.
“I’ll be clear: if these crazy, fanatic Islamic terrorists get away with murder by hiding among civilians, this method will be adopted by terrorists worldwide,” he concluded. “We’re not asking anyone to fight for us. We’ll do the job. But we do expect our allies to have our back, especially when it’s tough — and now it’s tough. Be on the right side and help us defeat these horrible and savage regimes.”
The Biden administration is telling Israel not to respond and saying the U.S. will not take part in any retaliatory attack on Iran.
One unique component of the defense of Israel is that, also for the very first time, Arab nations that have formerly been at war with Israel came to its d defense. Jordan scrambled its airforce and shot down numerous missiles while Saudi Arabia also assisted in an undisclosed manner.
–Dwight Widaman | Metro Voice
