Brandishing what he said was part of an Iranian drone shot down by the Israeli military, the prime minister warned in a speech in Munich against crossing Israel\u2019s \u201cred lines.\u201d<\/b>
\nMUNICH \u2014 Israel\u2019s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, attending a security conference with international leaders here in Munich, on Sunday brandished what he said was part of an Iranian drone shot down by Israel and warned that he was ready to go to war if Tehran continued to entrench itself in Syria.
Mr. Netanyahu, looking directly at Iran\u2019s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, during his speech said: \u201cDo you recognize this? You should. It\u2019s yours. You can take back with you a message to the tyrants of Tehran: Do not test Israel\u2019s resolve.\u201d
He said that if pushed, Israel would act \u201cnot only against Iranian proxies that are attacking us, but against Iran itself.\u201d
A few hours after Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s speech on Sunday, Mr. Zarif dismissed the Israeli leader\u2019s warning as a \u201ccartoonish circus which does not even deserve the dignity of a response.\u201d
The Iranian foreign minister accused Mr. Netanyahu of deliberately escalating the situation with \u201calmost daily incursions into Syrian airspace\u201d at a time when he was under pressure at home.
The remarks came just more than a week after the Israeli military had engaged directly with Iranian forces in Syria, striking what Israel said were a number of Iranian targets after intercepting a drone that had penetrated its airspace, then losing an Israeli fighter jet under Syrian antiaircraft fire.
It is believed to be the first Israeli plane lost under enemy fire in decades.
Israel has long warned about the risk of conflict as Iranian forces and their allies, including Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, have dug in on Syrian territory and approached the boundary with the Israeli-held portion of the Golan Heights.
Israel has carried out scores of airstrikes in Syria in recent years, focusing largely on what it says are advanced weapons stores or convoys of weapons meant for Hezbollah, and it has also reportedly hit Syrian government facilities involved in weapons development and an Iranian base under construction in Syria.
\u201cI\u2019ve made clear in word and deed that Israel has red lines it will enforce,\u201d Mr. Netanyahu said on Sunday. \u201cIsrael will continue to prevent Iran from establishing a permanent military presence in Syria. Israel will continue to act to prevent Iran from establishing another terror base from which to threaten Israel.\u201d
The Munich conference provided Mr. Netanyahu with a timely opportunity to appear on the world stage in his preferred role as Israel\u2019s security czar and chief guardian against Iran, just days after the Israeli police recommended that he be charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust in two corruption cases .
The prime minister, who denies all wrongdoing, has responded by lashing out at his and Israel\u2019s enemies and generally conducting his prime ministerial business as usual.
Mr. Netanyahu has long criticized the nuclear deal that was negotiated between Iran and the world\u2019s biggest powers under President Barack Obama and has found an ally in President Trump, who has said he wants to scrap the pact.
On Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu used the conference venue in the Bavarian capital to draw an analogy between the Iran deal and the appeasement of Nazi Germany, associated with a treaty signed here on the eve of World War II.
The Iran deal, he said, had \u201cunleashed a dangerous Iranian tiger in our region and beyond.\u201d
He stopped short of equating Iran with Nazi Germany but drew many comparisons. \u201cLet me be clear, Iran is not Nazi Germany,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are many differences between the two,\u201d he said, but, he noted, \u201cthere are also some striking similarities.\u201d
He pursued the analogy later in the afternoon, when he visited a memorial to Israeli athletes who were killed by Palestinian terrorists during the 1972 Munich Olympics.
\u201cThere is special meaning to the fact that we are standing at the place where 11 of our athletes were murdered just because they were Jews and Israelis,\u201d Mr. Netanyahu said. \u201cMillions were slaughtered here just because they were Jews.\u201d
Today, he said, \u201cwe have a state and this state has acted, and is acting today, against terrorism and those who would destroy us,\u201d he said.
Mr. Netanyahu had made headlines the day before, when he condemned his Polish counterpart for saying Jews had also been perpetrators in World War II.
The Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, faced criticism in Munich for his response to a question about a law that was passed in Poland this month imposing jail terms for those suggesting the country was complicit in the Holocaust.
When an Israeli reporter asked whether he could go to jail for recounting the story of his mother, a Holocaust survivor who was betrayed by her Polish neighbors who gave details to the Nazis, Mr. Morawiecki gave a fumbling response.
\u201cOf course it\u2019s not going to be punishable, not going to be seen as criminal, to say that there were Polish perpetrators, as there were Jewish perpetrators, as there were Russian perpetrators, as there were Ukrainian, not only German perpetrators,\u201d he said.
Mr. Netanyahu swiftly replied, calling the comments \u201coutrageous.\u201d
\u201cThere is a problem here of an inability to understand history and a lack of sensitivity to the tragedy of our people,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cI intend to speak with him forthwith.\u201d<\/p>\n

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