Netanyahu: I cannot think of a weaker message we could be sending Iran

 “If there were no surprises, we wouldn’t have been able to destroy the reactor in Iraq,” Netanyahu says of the 1981 strike ordered by prime minister Menachem Begin, noting that he had been asked for such a commitment several times by Washington over his 15 years in power and always refused.

Netanyahu says he was asked specifically by President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, “don’t surprise us” on Iran, but refused to make such a commitment, telling them only, “I’ll take your request into account.”

Branding Lapid Israel’s “prime minister in practice,” he said Lapid and Bennett “gave up the right to act without advance notice” against the Iranian regime and its nuclear program.

“I cannot think of a weaker and more flaccid message we could be sending Iran,” he says, adding that the country’s ayatollahs can now “sleep well at night.”

He concludes that the new government is “not fit to lead.”

“This is not a political issue; this is an issue of security, of lives being endangered,” he charges.

For his part, Lapid, who is also the alternate prime minister, responded by saying in a sarcastic tone, "The first part of the sentence (of Netanyahu) is incorrect, and the second part will not happen. I thank the opposition leader for the advice."