Netanyahu says he doesn’t know if Iranians will oust regime: ‘You can lead someone to water, you can’t make them drink’

There is no guarantee that the Iranian people will rise up after Israel “creates the conditions” for them to topple the regime in Tehran, says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“You can lead someone to water, you cannot make him drink,” says Netanyahu. “We will create optimal conditions to do this, including airstrikes as we did yesterday, as we are doing these days, to try to give them the space needed to take to the streets.”

“I do not deny it: I cannot say for certain that the Iranian people will bring down the regime,” he repeats.

“Ultimately, a regime is ousted from within,” he says. “But we can certainly help,” he stresses, noting that, “We told you, ‘Help is on the way.’ Well, the help has come and more will follow.”

“We all are hoping for the result of this regime falling,” he notes.

Even if the regime in Iran does not fall, says Netanyahu, “it will be much weaker.”

“It’s simply a different Iran — it no longer threatens as it did before,” he continues. “It is not the same power. It’s not the giant bully that nothing can be done against and that no one can unite against.”

Together with the US, Israel is preventing a regime that sought to destroy it from doing so. “Our enemies are not disappearing in an instant,” he says, “but look at our amazing successes.”

He says that countries are uniting with Israel against Iran, both in overt ways and in “other ways that will become clear later.”

Israel was thought to be finished after October 7, 2023, but today Israel is stronger than ever, “at least a regional power,” he says, and it eliminated “a kind of Hitler” who sought its destruction for almost half a century.

Asked about whether he would go after Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, Netanyahu replies: “I wouldn’t take out a life insurance policy on any of the leaders of the terror organizations.”

He says Israel has targeted Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and killed another “very important” nuclear scientist, that Israel has “many surprises” up its sleeve for the current campaign, and that it is going better than expected.