OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israel launched large-scale strikes against Iran on Friday, saying it had targeted nuclear facilities, ballistic missile factories and military commanders at the start of a prolonged operation to prevent Tehran from building an atomic weapon.
“You can only fool some of the people so many times,” Iran’s then-foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, had said in 2018 after Netanyahu had once again accused Iran of planning to build nuclear weapons.
On Friday, after two decades, Netanyahu attacked on Iran nuclear facilities continuing Israeli aggression in the region.
In an address to the nation, Netanyahu, as he has so often before, evoked the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust in World War Two to explain his decision.
“Nearly a century ago, facing the Nazis, a generation of leaders failed to act in time,” Netanyahu said, adding that a policy of appeasing Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler had led to the deaths of 6 million Jews, “a third of my people”.
“After that war, the Jewish people and the Jewish state vowed never again. Well, never again is now today. Israel has shown that we have learned the lessons of history.”
Iran says its nuclear energy programme is only for peaceful purposes.
Throughout his years in office, Netanyahu has rarely missed an opportunity to lecture foreign leaders about the alleged dangers posed by Iran, displaying cartoons of an atomic bomb at the United Nations, while always hinting he was ready to strike.
In past premierships, military analysts said his room for manoeuvre with Iran was limited by fears an attack would trigger instant retaliation from Tehran’s regional proxies, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, that would be hard to contain.
Blindsided by Trump
Israel has also sparred openly with Tehran since 2024, firing rocket salvos deep into Iran last year that gave Netanyahu confidence in the power of his military aggression in the region.
Israeli military sources claimed the strikes disabled four of Iran’s Russian-made air-defence systems, including one positioned near Natanz, a key Iranian nuclear site that was targeted, according to Iranian television.
“Iran is more exposed than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities. We have the opportunity to achieve our most important goal — to thwart and eliminate the existential threat,” Defence Minister Israel Katz said in November.
But much to the consternation of Netanyahu, newly installed US President Donald Trump blindsided him during a visit to the White House in April, when he announced the United States and Iran were poised to begin direct nuclear talks.
Netanyahu has locked horns with successive US presidents over Iran, most noticeably Barack Obama, who approved a deal with Tehran in 2015 imposing significant restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
Trump pulled out of the accord in 2018, and Netanyahu had hoped that he would continue to take an uncompromising stance against Iran when he returned to office this year.
In announcing talks, the White House set a two-month deadline for Iran to sign a deal.
A a fresh round of meetings was set for this weekend.
One Israeli official told state broadcaster Kan that Israel had coordinated with Washington ahead of the attacks and suggested recent newspaper reports of a rift between Trump and Netanyahu over Iran had been a ruse to lull the Tehran leadership into a false sense of security.
Image tarnished
Trump - who said after the strikes began that Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb but that he wants talks to proceed - has previously hailed the right-wing Netanyahu as a great friend. Other leaders have struggled with him.
In 2015, then-President Nicolas Sarkozy of France was overheard talking about Netanyahu with Obama. “I can’t stand him any more, he’s a liar,” he said.
Netayahu’s hawkish image has badly with continuous bombing on Gaza, killing men, women, and children together.
Israel hits Iran nuclear and missile facilities, appears to block retaliation
He has subsequently been indicted by the International Criminal Court over possible war crimes tied to Israel’s 20-month invasion of Gaza, which has reduced much of the Palestinian territory to rubble. He rejects the charges against him.
Polls show most Israelis believe the war in Gaza has gone on for too long, with Netanyahu dragging out the conflict to stay in power and stave off elections that pollsters say he will lose.
Even as the multi-front war has progressed, he has had to take the stand in his own, long-running corruption trial, where he denies any wrongdoing, which has further dented his reputation at home.
However, he hopes a successful military campaign against Israel’s arch foe will secure his place in the history books he so loves to read.
“Generations from now, history will record that our generation stood its ground, acted in time and secured our common future. May God bless Israel. May God bless the forces of civilisation, everywhere,” he said in Friday’s speech.