Education Minister Bennett
Photo: Motti Kmchi
Bennett: Nasrallah will 'lose Lebanon', Iranian regime 'on borrowed time'
Education Minister Bennett says Hezbollah leader will lose Lebanon if he starts a war with Israel, ayatollahs' regime will 'inevitably collapse'; Syria will become 'Iran's Vietnam,' he adds, vowing to 'strike at the octopus's head with all of our technological sophistication and military might.'
Education Minister Naftali Bennett commented on recent security tensions on Israel's northern frontier by sending a threatening message to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, saying, "You have branded yourself as the defender of Lebanon,
but if you start a war against Israel, you'll lose Lebanon."
Speaking at the 18th annual Herzliya Conference at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center Tuesday afternoon, the Bayit Yehudi chief also directed remarks at Iran—hours before US President Donald Trump was expected to announce his decision on the nuclear deal—saying, "The ayatollahs' regime is on borrowed time and will inevitably collapse."
Education Minister Bennett said Syria will become Iran's Vietnam if it persists in its current policy (Photo: Motti Kimchi)
"If Iran continues on its current path," Bennett added, "it will discover Syria has become its own Vietnam."
Speaking about the Second Lebanon War, Bennett said Hezbollah was stronger then. "In the months after the war, we have seen the first outposts created, and fell back. You might have expected us to change our outlook after the war, but we didn't," he said.
"Today Hezbollah could be said to pose a serious threat to Israel, but not an existential one," the minister opined. "It's not the Hezbollah of the 1990s. Between 2000 and 2006, our conception bought us six years of calm."
Nasrallah, the self-styled 'defender of Lebanon,' will lose Lebanon if he attacks Israel, Bennett said
Circling back to Iran, Bennett said that, "In the test of determination and consistency—Israel will win. I'm not proposing directly attacking Iran, (but) Israel should build a capability to significantly strike at the heart of Iran to deter its head."
"The Iranians don't love dying," the minister explained, "but it's very easy for them to send others to die. While we're shedding blood fighting their tentacles, the octopus's head is lounging in its chair and enjoying itself."
Israel's doctrine should therefore be "No more," Bennett said, by "aiming at the head of the octopus and not its tentacles."
Iranian President Rouhani. It was time to strike at the octopus's head, Bennett declared (Photo: AFP)
Concluding his remarks, Bennett appealed directly to the Islamic republic's younger generation, saying, "The Israeli people highly respect the Persian people. We have no desire to fight Iran and harbor no territorial aspirations towards it."
"Your regime is squandering millions of dollars to build an empire in the Middle East and destroy the State of Israel. We will fight back with all of our technological sophistication and military might," he warned.
