Don’t test us, Netanyahu tells Iran in Israeli war of words
ISRAEL’S prime minister yesterday opened a war of words with Iran’s foreign minister as he brandished a piece of what he claimed was an Iranian drone destroyed in Israeli airspace.
Holding part of the drone shot down last week amid rising tensions between the two powers, Benjamin Netanyahu asked Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister: “Do you recognise it? You should. It’s yours. Don’t test us.”
He warned that Iran was the “greatest threat to our world”.
Speaking at a Munich security conference, Mr Netanyahu appeared to threaten further measures, adding: “We will act if necessary, not just against Iran’s proxies, but against Iran itself.”
Mr Zarif, also speaking at the conference, dismissed Mr Netanyahu’s presentation as “a cartoonish circus, which does not even deserve a response”.
The dispute comes a week after military escalation in Syria raised questions about Israel’s supremacy in the Middle East. Last week Israel claimed an Iranian drone breached its airspace. An Israeli attack helicopter destroyed it, and in a retaliatory move, Israeli fighter jets were scrambled to Syria, where they attacked several targets.
The move came at a price: one Israeli jet was brought down. The pilots ejected over Israel and one was seriously injured. For Mr Netanyahu, who is fighting corruption charges and may welcome the opportunity to flex some muscle, the Munich symposium pronotary vided a chance to sound the alarm on rising Iranian power. In Syria, the Iranbacked Lebanese militia Hizbollah has played a pivotal role in supporting Bashar al-assad, the Syrian president. And in both Syria and Iraq, Iranian troops and Iran-backed militias have played critical roles in fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).
Mr Netanyahu warned that Tehran sought to exploit the gap left by Isil for its own advance. He said Iran was “trying to establish a continuous empire “from Iran to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza”. He said: “This is a very dangerous development for our region.”
But Iran’s leadership scoffed at his claims. Mr Zarif denied that Tehran was seeking “hegemony” in the Middle East.
He also accused Israel’s top ally, the US, of using the conference to “revive hysteria” against Iran. Donald Trump, the US president, has frequently called the Iran nuclear deal a bad one. That view is shared by Mr Netanyahu, who said the 2015 deal must be scrapped or rewritten to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapon capabilities.
But signatories France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China say the deal cannot be revisited and Iran is holding up its end by allowing inspections. ♦mr Netanyahu has told his Polish counterpart that remarks on “Jewish perpetrators of the Holocaust” were unacceptable. Mateusz Morawiecki suggested Jews were among the perpetrators in the Holocaust when questioned by a journalist about a new law in Poland that makes it illegal to accuse Poland of complicity in Nazi crimes.
Aconference on security might be expected to listen most closely to those who feel most threatened. Yet when Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, addressed a gathering in Munich yesterday he found himself under attack for pointing an accusatory finger at Iran. More than that, he brandished what he said was a piece of an Iranian drone shot down over Israeli territory.
The drone’s interception led to last week’s Israeli raids on Iranian targets in Syria – the first known direct engagement between the two countries. Tehran denied culpability and dismissed Mr Netanyahu’s theatricality as “cartoonish” while media observers questioned whether it had more to do with diverting attention from the corruption charges he faces in Israel.
But it could be that Mr Netanyahu was trying to make the rest of the world sit up and take the Iranian threat to the Middle East more seriously than has been the case since the US/EU agreement with Tehran over nuclear weapon development. Unlike many of the leaders pontificating about security in Munich, Israel is literally in the firing line and more aware than most of Iran’s encroachment throughout the region. For all its denials, Tehran is encouraging and arming terror organisations that pose a real threat to stability in an already volatile part of the world.
Israel’s greatest concern is the resurgence of Hizbollah, a highly trained army hardened by fighting as Iran’s proxy in Syria. It is one of the most powerful non-state forces in history, dedicated to Israel’s destruction and right on its doorstep. Mr Netanyahu might be grandstanding to make a point, but the threat is all too real.