Invoking 'woman, life, freedom,' Netanyahu says Tehran is next after Damascus

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the downfall of Iran's Islamic rule might be around the corner in a video message to its people, days after the buoyant premier took credit for toppling Tehran's ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

“Woman, Life, Freedom is the future of Iran,” Netanyahu said, echoing the slogan that gained international prominence during 2022 protests in Iran against mandatory Islamic veiling.

"I have no doubt that we’ll realize that future together a lot sooner than people think.”

The video is the latest of a series of messages posted on Netanyahu’s account on X in recent months aimed apparently at wooing Iranians and fanning the flames of their discontent with their clerical rulers who are Israel's arch-enemies.

Netanyahu emphasized Iran’s largesse for armed allies abroad while millions at home suffer economic hardship.

“Your oppressors spent over $30 billion supporting Assad in Syria, and only after 11 days of fighting his regime collapsed into dust,” Netanyahu said. “You must be furious, imagining the new roads, schools, hospitals that could have been built with the tens of billions of dollars your dictators wasted backing terrorists who lose over and over and over again.”

Netanyahu’s remarks come shortly after the collapse of the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad. Assad was Tehran’s main ally in the region and the ripples of his fall are strongly felt in Iran.

On Monday, he took credit for Assad's downfall and said the Jewish state has overcome doubters of its war aims to dismantle the Mideast-wide axis led by Iran.

"If we were to agree to those who said time after time, we must stop the war ... we wouldn't have exposed Iran in its weakness," he told reporters in a speech. "(We) broke apart this axis, brick by brick."

Iran's exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi re-tweeted Netanyahu's message, praising his initiative to directly address the Iranian people. "Prime Minister @netanyahu's direct, repeated dialogue with the Iranian people is a positive step...I invite other world leaders, instead of engaging in useless negotiations with the criminal regime, to engage the Iranian nation directly," he wrote.

Meanwhile Iran's judiciary warned critics of the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy to avoid discussions of the downfall of Assad that could undermine domestic security.

“Media and online activists in the country should refrain from addressing topics that disrupt the psychological security of society and frighten the public about the situation,” the office of Iran’s Attorney General said on Wednesday.

The statement followed a speech by supreme leader Ali Khamenei who characterized talks of Iran’s weakening position in the Middle East as criminal.