News / Interviews

Netanyahu’s claims aimed at inciting US against Iran: Pundit

Sunday, 18 February 2018 2:04 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 18 February 2018 2:04 PM ]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a speech during the Munich Security Conference on February 18, 2018 in Munich, southern Germany. (Photo by AFP)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to “instigate” the United States to launch a campaign against Iran by accusing the Islamic Republic of violating its airspace. This argument was made by Jamal Wakim, professor of international relations at Lebanese University, during an interview he gave to Press TV on Sunday.

“This is how I see it especially at the time when Benjamin Netanyahu needs to escalate the situation especially that the situation in Syria is stabilizing [in] favor of the Syrian government and the Syrian army and the allies of Syria like Iran and Russia, and he wants to reshuffle the whole situation by getting an American green light to attack Syria and the Lebanese resistance and at the same time to encourage the United States to launch an attack against Iran.”

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Sunday, Netanyahu brandished a rectangular chunk of dark green metal, which he called a piece of an Iranian drone that the Israeli military claims to have downed more than a week ago.

Earlier this month, Tel Aviv claimed that it had responded to the infiltration of an Iranian drone into the Israeli airspace.

It then released grainy footage allegedly showing the downing of an Iranian drone by an Israeli attack helicopter and subsequent airstrikes on Syria, during which the regime had at least one F-16 warplane shot down.

Tehran has dismissed the allegations as "ridiculous," while Damascus has said the Syrian army had launched the drone to track down terrorists of Daesh Takfiri group when an Israeli helicopter violated its airspace and shot it down.