Netanyahu: An attack on Israel would be Iran’s ‘most serious mistake’ in its history

By Lazar Berman

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23 February 2026, 5:15 pm

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Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seen in the Knesset plenum in Jerusalem on February 23, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Israel has never been stronger than it is now, says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a speech to the Knesset plenum.

“The pact with the United States has never been closer,” declares Netanyahu, speaking at a “40-signatures” debate in the Knesset.

In a possible message to Iran, he stresses that the personal ties between himself and US President Donald Trump, and between the IDF and the US military, have also never been better.

At the same time, he says, “we are in very complex and challenging times.”

If the Iranian regime “makes perhaps the most serious mistake in its history,” he warns, “and attacks Israel, we will respond with strength that it can’t even imagine.”