Edelstein says he hopes Israeli response to Iran ‘will teach them a lesson’

Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, the chair of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, says that Israel’s response to the Iranian attack will send a message of deterrence to Tehran while drawing a line under this round of hostilities.

Edelstein says the Israeli considerations on its response include the war-wariness of Western powers, the risk to air crews from any sorties against Iran and the need to keep focus on the more than half-year-long war on Hamas in Gaza.

“We’ll have to react. Iranians will know we reacted. And I sincerely hope that it will teach them a lesson that you can’t attack a sovereign country just because you find it doable,” Edelstein tells Reuters.

But he adds: “I sincerely hope that they will understand that it’s not in their interest to continue this kind of exchange of blows. We are not interested in a full-scale war. We are not, as I have said, in the business of revenge.”