Lapid pans Netanyahu over report of blocked Iran strike; Bennett suggests PM behind leak to NYT

Commenting on the report that US President Donald Trump blocked an Israeli effort to hit Iran’s nuclear facilities, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid says he suggested strikes on the country’s oil fields in October but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “was afraid, and halted it.”

Meanwhile, former prime minister Naftali Bennett, a likely Netanyahu rival for right-wing votes in the next election, accuses the premier of being behind the leak of the stalled plan to The New York Times.

“The Netanyahu doctrine is to threaten, threaten, threaten and then leak [to the media] that he meant to but was prevented from doing it,” Bennett says in a statement, adding that this is “another dangerous conception that mustn’t blow up in our faces. There won’t be another such opportunity.”