Late on Tuesday October 1, the nation of Israel was rocked by a massive missile attack, launched by Iran. Over 180 rockets and missiles were fired on the Jewish nation, as over 10 million Israeli citizens were forced to take shelter in bomb bunkers. As the nation mulls its counter attack strategy, opposition leaders have already come out all guns blazing, demanding a strong and pivotal response to Iran’s aggressions.
Naftali Bennett the leader of the New Right party is at the forefront of such demands, a former Prime Minister of Israel and one of the biggest leaders in the country, Bennett has also served in the Israeli military.
Post the shocking direct attacks by Iran, Bennett took to social media to mark this as a decisive opportunity to reshape the region and take out Iran’s nuclear capabilities. “Israel has now its greatest opportunity in 50 years, to change the face of the Middle East. The leadership of Iran, which used to be good at chess, made a terrible mistake this evening. We must act *now* to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, its central energy facilities, and to fatally cripple this terrorist regime.”
Branding Iran as the head of the octopus of terror and Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis as the tentacles, Bennett urged the Netanyahu government to take out the head, for the safety of the Israeli people, “To strike the head of the octopus of terror, that, in its cowardice, sent its tentacles (Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc.) to murder us, while the Ayatollahs sat safely in their palaces in Tehran. The octopus’s tentacles are temporarily paralysed – now comes the head. We must remove this terrible threat to our children’s future.”
The missile strikes, launched on Tuesday, marked Iran’s second direct strike on Israel this year. The first attack came in April where over 300 drones and missiles were launched by Iran. Since then, Israel has taken out a number of important militant leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, and is now beginning a ground incursion into Lebanon.
Posting on X, Bennett gave an emotional call to recall the atrocities committed on the Israeli people, their cities, families and lives damaged and destroyed by Iran and its proxies. He went on to call this an unmissable opportunity to make history.
“We have the justification. We have the tools. Now that Hezbollah and Hamas are paralyzed, Iran stands exposed. Over this last terrible year, Iranian tentacles murdered our families. Raped our daughters. Kidnapped our children. Ransacked our towns. Burned our fields. Fired on our ships. Terrorized children in Kiryat Shmona, Kfar Aza, and Sderot. Emptied out whole regions of our land. Humiliated us. Now is the moment. A Nation of Lions has united and proven its strength over the last year. It has yearned for a change, for action, for so very long. There are times when history knocks at our door, and we must open it. This opportunity must not be missed.”
These kind of extremely nationalist and unifying comments from an opposition leader may seem rather surprising to Indians, where in stark contrast the opposition here is always eager to score political points even at the cost of the nation.
Over the past few years we have seen the opposition criticize the removal of Article 370, while pushing for the continuation of the radical and anti national politics of Kashmir instead. Even in the current state election campaign, the opposition is advocating for the reinstatement of the highly divisionary Article.
The sabotaging is not just reserved for politics, even the armed forces are not spared. Post the historic surgical strikes against Pakistan, the opposition instead of congratulating the government and the forces, instead went on to ask for evidence of the strikes, even regurgitating Pakistani propaganda against their own army, just to undermine the great achievement.
Opposition leaders seem to spend the majority of their time running down their own nation, celebrating whenever the country suffers hoping that it will help them claim an inch in an election.
Leaders that have no issues with big international businesses, run hate campaigns against local businessmen. Smear campaigns against Adani and Ambani are a given at any opposition led political rally. They are ready to join hands with foreign powers to bring down their own markets, hoping that it would spell the fall pf the ruling government.
Just this year the opposition was busy admonishing the historic Ram temple and its construction with no regard to the religious feelings of the populace, in hopes that the statements would win them minority votes.
Big opposition leaders take international tours every few months to run down their own nation in front of international audiences. Recently the leader of the opposition Rahul Gandhi went to the USA and gave lectures on how great the Chinese governance model is compared to India.
The obsession for power is so high that the opposition spends most of its time clamouring for a caste census, trying to pit Indians against each other to break down the basic working of the country and sow hate in the common man.
Such anti nation behaviour in the opposition is so common that Indians have largely become immune to it. It comes as an extremely welcome change to witness a country so unified where the opposition is not obsessed with grabbing a few votes, but instead backs the ruling government to achieve larger national aims. One can only hope that perhaps one day these divisionary leaders will learn how not to be mere opportunists but instead strive to be great civilizational leaders.