Netanyahu visits IDF field hospital for Syrians

PM and Ya'alon speak with IDF personnel, Syrian victims; Netanyahu: The world must not forget the true face of Iran.

Netanyahu looks at Syrian patient IDF field hospital (photo credit: KOBI GIDEON/GPO)
Netanyahu looks at Syrian patient IDF field hospital
(photo credit: KOBI GIDEON/GPO)

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday visited a Golan Heights field hospital that treats Syria’s wounded, as part of his campaign to unveil “the true face of Iran.”“On the day that the world powers are opening talks in Vienna with Iran, it is important for the world to see pictures from this place,” he said.“This place separates the good in the world from the evil in the world.”The good, the prime minister said, is Israel, which “saves lives from the daily slaughter taking place in Syria. This is the true face of Israel.”The evil, he continued, is Iran, which is arming those carrying out the slaughter.“All the children wounded, to say nothing of those killed, were harmed as a result of Iran arming, financing and training the Assad regime in the mass slaughter it is perpetrating,” he said.“From here,” Netanyahu continued, “I want to say to the world, as the talks between the major powers and Iran are being resumed, that Iran has not changed its aggressive policies. Iran has not changed its brutal character; Iran continues to support the Assad regime, which is slaughtering its citizens. This is the true face of Iran, and the world must not forget that.”Netanyahu has spoken repeatedly in recent days of the need to remind the world of Iran’s role in the Syrian civil war, its support of terrorist groups around the world, and its violation of the human rights of its own people, including the wholesale execution of civilians.One government official said the point Netanyahu was trying to hammer home was that the Assad regime was not an independent actor, and would not have survived as long as it had without Iranian support. The link between the situation in Syria and the restart of the negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program in Vienna, he added, was that the world must realize it was dealing with a mendacious regime that would stop at nothing to fulfill its goals.Netanyahu toured the Golan Heights with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz.At a lookout point overlooking the Syrian border, OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan briefed Netanyahu on the presence of global jihad elements inside Syria, as well as on the work being done to fortify the Israeli-Syrian border fence.