Netanyahu: 80 percent of Iranians hate their ruling regime

In a Hebrew interview aired on Channel 14 this evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues a series of recent comments in favor of regime change in Tehran, and suggests that the current war could facilitate the Abraham Accords normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states.

Asked whether regime change is a goal of his war, Netanyahu says he “sees this through a historical lens…Cyrus freed the Jews, and today the Jewish state might free the Persians. Not in the sense that we’re doing it for them…In the end, they have to rise up themselves, but we are creating the conditions. And that’s why it could be consequential.”

Netanyahu twice claims in the interview that “80 percent” of Iranians “hate” the ruling regime, without providing where the figure came from. He calls Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a “modern Hitler” and says Israel plans to destroy “additional regime facilities” in the operation.

Netanyahu says he believes the war marks a turning point in the region: “We’re going to see a different Middle East, a reality we haven’t seen until now,” he states, predicting that the Arab world will further open up to Israel as a result of the war, and that the conflict could ultimately facilitate an expansion of the Abraham Accords.

“The Arab world has opened up to us,” Netanyahu says. “And the threat we face now is Iran. It’s either us or them.”