Bennett: Iran’s days of setting Middle East on fire are over

Israel will no longer allow Iran to continue its aggression with impunity, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned on a visit to the IDF Northern Command on Monday.

“Iran already knows the price that we exact when someone threatens our security,” he said. “The Iranians need to understand that it is impossible to sit peacefully in Tehran and from there ignite the entire Middle East. That is over.”

Bennett’s remarks came several days after Iran launched a suicide drone attack one the Mercer Street, an Israeli-managed ship, killing a Romanian and a British national. The US, UK and Romania said they are certain Iran was behind the attack and that they would work on a response.

The prime minister spoke of Israeli efforts to bring the international community to its side against Iran, including sharing the intelligence showing Iran was the perpetrator, but said that “we also know how to act alone.”

The increase in the defense budget, as part of the state budget the cabinet passed on Sunday, is a reflection of Israel’s seriousness about investing in countering the Iranian threat, the prime insisted said.

Bennett also criticized the European Union for sending Enrique Mora, the EU coordinator in Iran nuclear talks and deputy secretary-general of the European External Action Services, the EU’s foreign ministry, to attend incoming Iranian President Ebrahim  Raisi’s inauguration this week.

“Raisi is the most extreme Iranian president of them all, and the competition is tough,” Bennett said. “I call on the EU: One cannot talk about human rights and simultaneously honor a murderer, a hangman, who has eliminated hundreds of opponents of the regime.” 

The new Iranian president has been nicknamed “the Butcher of Tehran,” because of the former judge’s role in the execution of thousands of Iranian dissidents, which earned him US sanctions for human rights violations and war crimes charges in Sweden.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lior Haiat said “the decision of the European Union to send a senior representative to the swearing-in ceremony of the ‘Butcher of Tehran’ is puzzling and shows poor judgment.”

Calling the attack on the Mercer Street an act of state-sponsored terror, Haiat said EU attendance at Raisi’s swearing in “gives legitimacy to the Iranian attack and the policy of aggression of the ayatollahs’ government.”

Former EU high representative for foreign affairs Federica Mogherini attended the inauguration of Iran’s departing president, Hassan Rouhani.

However, the current ceremony is taking place after a nearly two-months break from indirect negotiations between Iran and the US to return to the 2015 nuclear deal.

Mora’s visit to Iran is meant in part to break the impasse and revive the talks, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The EU also condemned the attack on the Mercer Street on Monday night, but did not mention Iran in its statement. Saying only that it “takes note” of the US, UK and Israeli assessment and that the attack is “unacceptable.” 

Also on Monday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the attack on Mercer Street would not deter the US from trying to return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

Asked about the possibility of Israel retaliating for the strike on the ship during the White House daily press briefing, Psaki said that “as a sovereign country, Israel is going to make their own decisions.

“But I will say that as it relates to our own engagement in nuclear talks – which we, of course, do have authorities over or do have decisions to make there – our view is that every single challenge and threat we face from Iran would be made more pronounced and dangerous by an unconstrained nuclear program.”

“So, put another way, constraining Iran’s nuclear program by returning to the JCPOA will put us in a better position to address these other problems,” Psaki continued. “It doesn’t mean that it will take care of the other issues that have been ongoing concerns we’ve had with Iran. They are a bad actor on the global stage. They have threatened our own military, as we all know. But we continue to believe that pursuing a diplomatic path forward, that pursuing an opportunity to make sure we have greater visibility into what their nuclear capabilities are is in our national interest.”