A day after Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid released a statement calling on the United States to avoid dropping Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) from Washington’s terror list, the country’s defense minister weighed in on the issue.
According to a report by Ynet on Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz used an appearance at a conference to call on the United States to keep the IRGC on the American terror list, stating, “I want to be very clear on this: The IRGC is a terror organization, and they should stay as such, and this is how they should be perceived.”
“I think that ultimately, the State of Israel’s strategic relations with the U.S., Western states and regional states should not be managed on Twitter,” he said. “It is done directly with them, and this is what I am doing. I am in touch with all of the American elements and traveling in all regional states—those that have relations with Israel and those that do not.”
“Iran is a global and regional problem, and a potential existential threat to the State of Israel,” he emphasized. “Hence, we must recruit the world, and we must make our intelligence, offensive and defense capabilities available.”