Netanyahu accuses Iran of seeking to 'colonize' Syria for a Mideast 'empire'

 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, holds a part of a downed drone during his speech at the Munich Security Conference, MSC, in Munich , Germany, Sunday, Feb. 18, 2018.
(Image credit: Lennart Preiss/The Associated Press)

"Israel will not allow Iran's regime to put the noose of terror around our neck," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday. "We will act without hesitation to defend ourselves. And we will act, if necessary, not only against Iranian proxies that are attacking us but against Iran itself."

Netanyahu alleged Iran is attempting to "colonize" Syria, which is located between the two countries, as part of a larger project "to establish this continuous empire surrounding the Middle East from the south in Yemen but also trying to create a land bridge from Iran to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza." As he spoke, he waved a piece of an Iranian drone recently downed on Israeli land.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif labeled the remarks "a cartoonish circus which does not even deserve a response." He accused Israel of practicing "aggression as a policy against its neighbors," saying Netanyahu is angry because "the so-called invincibility [of Israel] has crumbled."

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.