Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following the publication of a New York Times report that Israel had formulated a plan to attack Iran, which was blocked by US President Donald Trump.
According to Bennett, "Begin's doctrine on the nuclear issue was to attack and destroy, that was the case in Iraq and that was the case in Syria. Netanyahu's doctrine is to threaten, threaten, threaten and then leak that he intended to, but we didn't let him. Another dangerous 'conceptzia' that must not blow up in our faces. There will never be another opportunity like this."
The remarks were made following a report last night in the New York Times, according to which Israel had formulated plans for a large-scale military operation against Iran's nuclear facilities, which was planned to be carried out as early as this May.
According to the report, Trump halted the move after lengthy internal discussions in the White House, during which the possibility of a military response to Iran's nuclear activity was considered, versus the option of renewing talks for a negotiated agreement. An Israeli strike on Iran requires advance coordination with US Central Command, even if Israel intends to strike alone.
It was also reported that Israel had formulated a targeted operational plan, designed to hit a number of critical sites, with the goal of "setting back Iran's ability to achieve nuclear weapons by a year or more," as sources quoted in the newspaper.
Negotiations between the US and Iran have begun, with Yisrael Hayom writing that "the New York Times' publication is part of the negotiations and serves to clarify to the Iranians that there is a real attack plan that the president stopped at the last moment to conduct negotiations." While in Washington, Netanyahu declared that it sees the Libyan model as the right goal in negotiations, meaning supervised destruction of the entire Iranian nuclear project.