{"id":197298,"date":"2019-11-03T09:03:51","date_gmt":"2019-11-03T09:03:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=197298"},"modified":"2019-11-06T06:07:58","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T06:07:58","slug":"netanyahu-iran-emboldened-by-lack-of-response-to-its-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=197298","title":{"rendered":"Netanyahu: Iran emboldened by lack of response to its attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Times of Israel Staff \u2013 Oct 31, 2019<\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Commander of the Aerospace Division of Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Amir Ali Hajizadeh looks at debris from a downed US Global Hawk drone in Tehran on June 21, 2019. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Hinting publicly for the first time at unease with the Trump administration\u2019s hesitancy, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said Iran was emboldened by the lack of a response to a series of attacks in the Middle East attributed to the Islamic Republic.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking at a ceremony for graduates of the Israel Defense Forces\u2019 officers course, Netanyahu warned of growing threats from Iran and its regional proxies, who he said are working to build up their arsenals.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe area around us is turbulent and stormy. The threats are popping up in every corner \u2014 in Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and also in Iraq, in Yemen and directly in Iran. Iranian and pro-Iranian forces are working nonstop to arm themselves,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Netanyahu, who is also defense minister, said Israel would respond harshly to any attempt to harm it, suggesting that other countries\u2019 failure to do likewise was encouraging Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re prepared for the threats and we won\u2019t hesitate to land a tough blow on whoever tries to harm us. Iran\u2019s brazenness in the region is increasing and even getting stronger in light of the absence of a response,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut Israel won\u2019t turn the other cheek,\u201d Netanyau added. \u201cWhoever is bent on aggression\u2026 will pay a heavy price.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Netanyahu did not specify whose lack of response was emboldening Iran, but his comments came after a series of attacks in the Persian Gulf on US assets and American allies.<\/span><\/p>\n

In June, US President Donald Trump called off a retaliatory strike after Iran downed an American drone that Tehran said entered its airspace. The US, which denied the drone entered Iranian skies, was later reported to have launched a cyberattack on Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last month, around half of Saudi Arabia\u2019s oil production capacity was knocked offline due to an attack claimed by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. There was no response to that attack, which the US, Israel and others also blamed on Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

Netanyahu, who has developed close ties with Trump, has not publicly commented on the lack of a US or Saudi response but has emphasized of late that Israel can defend itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel is now bracing for a similar assault to the one on Saudi Arabia, which involved armed drones and cruise missiles, with Hebrew media reporting earlier this month that the defense establishment was analyzing the strike on the Saudi oil facilities.<\/span><\/p>\n

The chief of the Israeli Air Force said Wednesday the military\u2019s multi-tiered network of air defense systems was\u00a0 \u201con alert\u201d amid a general threat of attack by Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

In recent weeks, the military has begun to believe that Tehran intends to eventually retaliate against Israel\u2019s regular airstrikes against its forces and proxies in the region.<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel has vowed to prevent Iran\u2019s regional proxy militias from obtaining advanced weapons to use against the Jewish state and has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria that it says were to prevent delivery of weapons and to stop Iranian military entrenchment in the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trump\u2019s reluctance to respond to the Iranian downing of a U.S. drone and the Houthi attack on Saudi oil facilities worries Israel. Will Iran or its allies target Israel next? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Iran","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=197298"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":197300,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197298\/revisions\/197300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=197298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=197298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=197298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}