Netanyahu: Regime change can be the ‘result’ of IDF operation

The prime minister told an Iranian opposition news site, “Now it’s time for you to be free.”

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a major Iranian opposition news site on Monday that the mullahs’ tyranny was coming to an end, and that Israel’s Operation Rising Lion was an “opportunity” for regime change.

In an interview with London-based Iran International, Netanyahu explained that Israel had to finally eliminate the threat of annihilation emanating from Iran, but that this was also a chance for its people to be free.

“We reached the twelfth hour,” he said. “This criminal regime, the tyrants of Tehran, basically planned two weapons of mass death to exterminate Israel. One is to rush forward with their nuclear program to develop atomic bombs to destroy Israel, and second, they’ve programmed to build a vast ballistic missile arsenal, each missile carrying a one-ton payload at Mach 6, just slamming into our cities, killing our women, our children. They were going to build 20,000 of these.”

Israel could not stand by while these “existential threats” existed, “but by acting to defend ourselves,” Israel is “acting to defend others, not least of whom are the people of Iran themselves, he noted.

“You know how the people of Iran have suffered under this brutal regime for 46 years,” Netanyahu said. “They’ve impoverished you. They’ve given you misery. They’ve given you death. They’ve given you terror…. This is an outrageous, radical, fanatic regime and the time has come to defang them and to stand up against evil. That’s what we’re doing.”

“But I think you should understand,” he added, “these dictators in Iran, sure they fear us — but they fear you, the people of Iran, even more, and your hour of freedom is near, it’s happening now,” he said.

Taking a historical view of the friendship between the Jewish and Iranian nations, he noted, “[Persian king] Cyrus the Great freed the Jews,” referring to the monarch who allowed the Jews to return to their homeland thousands of years ago to build the Second Temple.

“Now it’s time for you to be free, and you have that opportunity. The people of Iran I think have a brilliant future, and our friendship can be restored to what it was and what it should be. This is the time.”

When asked outright whether the goal of Israel’s war was regime change, Netanyahu answered that it was to eliminate the atomic and missile threats, “but the consequence can be, the results can be that the regime will be shattered.”

Asked how he sees regime change happening, Netanyahu answered, “Every Iranian citizen knows” that “the regime works on terror,” but that “this is all based on the image of invulnerability, of unmatched power, and we’re cutting that power down to size.”

“Iran has been licked, carry it to freedom,” he said. “It’s up to the people of Iran. And I think you’ll find the time and the opportunity because the hour of liberation is clear.”

“If we can help you achieve your freedom, that is a noble and worthy cause,” he added.