Former Israeli prime minister says that if he returns to office this fall he will dedicate his premiership to the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.By World Israel News StaffFormer Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Wednesday that a government led by him would make the overthrow of Iran’s ruling regime a formal strategic objective of the State of Israel, arguing that military strikes alone are not enough to stop Tehran’s nuclear ambitions or regional network.Speaking at the Herzliya Conference at Reichman University, Bennett said Israel remained in danger after nearly three years of war because its main enemies were rebuilding and Iran’s leadership was still intact.“After a thousand days of war, the truth must be told: Hamas is rearming in the south, Hezbollah is growing stronger — attacking our soldiers and threatening our citizens — and the head of the octopus, the regime in Tehran, remains standing,” Bennett said.Bennett, who heads the Together party and is positioning himself as a challenger to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the next election, said Israel needed a broader strategy aimed not only at damaging Iranian military assets but at bringing down the Islamic Republic itself.He said that under his leadership, after the next election, “the strategic goal of the State of Israel will be the overthrow of the Iranian regime — before Iran acquires a nuclear weapon.”“To achieve this, bombs are not enough,” Bennett said. “We will initiate a comprehensive campaign that will deepen the weaknesses of the Iranian economy. We will develop cyber systems that will disrupt the regime’s ability to oppress its own citizens — who are mostly good, freedom-loving people.”“We will strengthen the large minority groups within Iran that are being crushed by the government. We will expose the corruption of the ayatollah regime.”The remarks marked one of Bennett’s clearest attempts to turn Iran policy into a campaign issue, casting Netanyahu as having failed to translate Israel’s military achievements into a decisive strategic result.Bennett has made similar arguments in recent weeks. In a June statement, he said, “The clock for regime change in Iran will start as soon as the government in Israel is changed,” and accused Netanyahu’s government of ending in “a historic failure against Iran.”He has also said he would revive what he calls the “Octopus Doctrine,” a strategy he championed as prime minister that called for Israel to strike more directly at Iran, the “head of the octopus,” rather than focusing primarily on Tehran’s regional proxies.“On the one hand, we prevent Iran from going nuclear, and on the other hand, we accelerate the collapse of the regime with political, economic, technological, and military tools,” Bennett said last month.In an interview with Iran International in June, Bennett said he had drawn up “an elaborate and detailed plan” to help Iranians bring down the Islamic Republic.“We’re going to do everything in our power to ultimately topple this horrible regime,” he said. “And I want to tell the Iranian people, the wonderful Iranian nation: Don’t lose your hope.”“This terrible, disconnected, corrupt and evil regime will fall. You will be free,” he added.Bennett said then that outside powers should be prepared to help Iranians when they rise up again against the regime. “What we’re going to do is ensure that next time the people of Iran rise up, we provide them the tools to win, communication and other tools,” he said. “This rotten regime will fall at some point.”“Our job is to accelerate that,” Bennett said.The former premier has also claimed that while he was in office, Israel began acquiring and smuggling tens of thousands of Starlink satellite internet terminals into Iran so anti-government protesters could maintain communications during state-imposed internet shutdowns. Reuters reported that Bennett said the effort was meant to allow Iranians to coordinate during unrest and ultimately help topple the regime.“Unfortunately, the current incompetent Israeli government stopped doing that,” Bennett said at the JNS International Policy Summit last week. “And when the protest happened, that infrastructure was not there.”Netanyahu has also spoken publicly about the possibility of regime change in Iran, though he has framed Israel’s role more cautiously. At the JNS summit last month, Netanyahu said Israel had “created the conditions” for the future fall of the regime by damaging the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s missile industry, navy, air force, military industries and infrastructure.“You cannot tell when such a regime will fall,” Netanyahu said. “And I think we created the conditions for its future fall.”He said the decisive step would have to come from Iranians themselves.“That is what will be the real triumph, when the Iranian people take their own destiny in their hands and they knock out this brutal regime that is terrorizing them and terrorizing the rest of the world.”Bennett’s remarks come as his standing in the polls steadily declines, with voters shifting their support to Gadi Eisenkot and his Yashar party.A former IDF Chief of Staff, Eisenkot served as a minister without portfolio in the Netanyahu government after October 7, 2023, as a member of the National Unity party.Last September, after bolting the party, Eisenkot established Yashar, positioning himself as an alternative to Bennett.The post Bennett vows to overthrow Iranian regime appeared first on World Israel News.