Former prime minister Naftali Bennett told the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) last week that 9/11 was caused by the international community’s failure to consider radical Islamism in the Middle East a global issue.
In an interview with the Israeli branch of the TBN, the world's largest Christian television network, Bennett spoke about being in Manhattan during 9/11, saying, “I saw those buildings on fire. That’s what happens when you say, ‘The Middle East isn’t our problem, we don’t care.’”
The former prime minister argued that if a nuclear deal with Iran is not reached, it will have impacts globally, not just within the Middle East.
Speaking about the current Israeli-US conflict with Iran, he added, “The radical Islamists will come to the Big Satan, to Manhattan, to California, to America, but with nuclear ballistic missiles.”
Since October 7, 2023, Iran has been linked to countless terror plots across the world.
Just months before the terror attack on Hanukkah in Bondi Beach, Australia, the country’s Iranian ambassador was given seven days to leave after intelligence services linked Iran to arson attacks on Jewish communities across Australia.
In April, Iranian intelligence services and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) operatives were linked to low-level “hybrid warfare” attacks throughout Europe and the UK, according to police documents.
Wave began shortly after start of war
The first wave of attacks was reportedly launched in early March, shortly after the US and Israel began strikes on Iran, targeting Jewish community sites in Belgium, the Netherlands, and US banks.
A second wave appears to be focused on the UK, with attempted arson attacks against synagogues and Iranian opposition media, and last week, a stabbing attack on two Jewish men in Golders Green, London.
The attacks across Europe and the UK have been claimed by the Islamic Movement of the People of the Right Hand (HAYI), a pro-Iranian Islamist group believed by experts to be a front group for the IRGC.
In July 2024, the US Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, warned that Iranian regime actors were engaging in influence campaigns to stoke and fund anti-Israel protests in the US.
“We have observed actors tied to Iran’s government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests, and even providing financial support to protesters,” said Haines.
One month earlier, Iran’s then-supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wrote a dramatic letter to American university students, praising their “defense of the Palestinian people,” and framing their actions as part of a broader “Resistance Front” against "Zionist oppression."