Former Israeli PM confirms Israel behind 2022 attacks in Iran

Naftali Bennett calls on US and Israel to strike directly at Iran in response to attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.

By World Israel News Staff

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett confirmed Thursday that Israel carried out a series of attacks inside Iran in retaliation for Iranian attacks on Israel, and urged the U.S. and Israel to “make the ayatollah’s pay” for attacks by their proxies.

In an op-ed piece published by The Wall Street Journal Thursday night, Bennett castigated Iran over its use of terrorist groups to wage a proxy war on Israel and the West. singling out in particular Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza and Judea and Samaria.

“Notice a pattern? The Iranian regime is at the center of most of the Middle East’s problems and much of global terror. Yet inexplicably, almost nobody is touching it,” Bennett wrote.

The former premier compared current Middle East tensions to the Cold War, casting Iran in the place of the Soviet Union.

“On one side, there is a corrupt, incompetent and hollow empire—the Islamic Republic of Iran—similar to the Soviet Union in the 1980s. On the other side, there is a thriving, free and strong democracy—Israel (and its allies)—reminiscent of the U.S. in the original Cold War.”

Bennett called on both the U.S. and Israel to take punitive action against Iran, striking it directly in response to the actions of its proxies.

As an example, Bennett cited attacks by Israel on Iran in 2022 – the first confirmation by an Israeli official of Israel’s role in the attacks.

Bennett referenced a pair of abortive drone strikes by Iran on Israel in February 2022, adding that Israel retaliated with a strike on Iranian soil that destroyed a drone base.

A month later, Bennett said, an Iranian terror cell’s plot to murder Israeli tourists in Turkey was foiled, prompting Israel to assassinate a senior Iranian commander in Tehran.