‘If Not Now, When?’: Former Israeli PM Praises Iranians, Urges Them To Depose Regime

In the midst of Israel’s war with Iran, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett sent a direct message to the Iranian people, assuring them that Israel is at war with the despotic Islamic regime that has cruelly oppressed them, and that there will never be a better time to “rise up” against it than now.

“As the former Prime Minister of Israel, I have a special message to the Iranian people: Your time is now,” Bennett declared in a video that was translated into Persian. “Your time is now to rise up against your cruel dictators. You have a horrible regime, and you’re a good nation. An old, disconnected, corrupt, and egotistical regime, a regime that is cruel and incompetent. This is the time to rise up. We’ve taken out the heads of the military, the heads of the IRGC.”

“If not now, when?” he asked rhetorically. “There won’t be a better time. And I want to tell you something: Israel is not at war with the Iranian people. We’re at war with the regime, with the nuclear program. We respect the Iranian people.”

“Here I am in Bat Yam, the city where roughly 50 to 70 buildings were hit,” he said. “I know that you guys are being hit. We don’t want to hit civilians; we respect you.”

“Your time is now,” he repeated. “If you act, Israel will stand with you. The world will stand with you. Good luck, and may God bless you.”

پیامی به شما، مردم عزیز ایران، از طرف نخست‌وزیر پیشین اسرائیل، نفتالی بنت:
این فرصت شماست تا از شر این رژیم وحشتناک خلاص شوید.
مردم ایران دشمن اسرائیل نیستند، تنها دشمن شما این رژیم فاسد, ظالم وبی‌رحم است

מסר אל העם האיראני היקר:
העם האיראני אינו אויב של ישראל.
זה הרגע שלכם… pic.twitter.com/Ct0jiOmA58

— Naftali Bennett נפתלי בנט (@naftalibennett) June 16, 2025

Iran, originally known as Persia, is one of the oldest civilizations in the world. Its emperor Cyrus the Great, who ruled in the sixth century B.C. and expanded his empire until it was the largest in world history at the time, was one of the most tolerant rulers in history; he is highly respected among the Jewish people for freeing them from the Babylonian Empire and permitting them to return to Israel and Jerusalem and rebuild their sacred Temple.

Prior to the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran had good relations with Israel. But the visceral hatred of Israel and Jews evidenced by the Islamic regime has been clear from the inception of its rule, no better characterized than Iran being the only country in the world that objected to a 2022 United Nations resolution that condemned the denial and distortion of the Holocaust. “The General Assembly adopted the resolution by consensus — meaning it was approved without a country-by-country vote. Only Iran, Israel’s most ardent adversary, objected,” The New York Times admitted.

In 2012, former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, speaking at of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, recalled, “In a private discussion we held in Tehran in October of 2000, Ali Khamenei told me that Israel must be burned to the ground and made to disappear from the face of the Earth,” adding that Khamenei declared that “Iran’s war against the United States and Israel is inevitable.”