Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid issued a joint statement on Twitter in Hebrew on Friday in response to reports that the Biden administration was considering removing Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the US list of terrorist organizations, criticizing the potential move as "an insult to the victims and an erasure of documented reality."
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They added: "The Iranian Revolutionary Guards are Hezbollah in Lebanon, Islamic Jihad in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, the militias in Iraq.
"The Revolutionary Guards are behind attacks on American civilians and soldiers across the Middle East, including in the past year. They are behind the plots to assassinate senior American government officials.
The IRGC is the most powerful faction in Iran. Loyal solely to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Revolutionary Guards controls a business empire as well as elite armed and intelligence forces, including the infamous Quds Force – the IRGC's extra-territorial black ops arm. In April 2019, then-US President Donald Trump designated the Revolutionary Guards as a "foreign terrorist organization" as part of efforts to increase international pressure on the Islamic republic.
A source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday that Washington had not decided what might be an acceptable commitment from Tehran in exchange for such a step
The unnamed source said the Biden administration was weighing whether to drop the terrorist designation "in return for some kind of commitment and/or steps by Iran, with respect to regional or other IRGC activities."
The Biden administration's consideration of such a tradeoff was first reported by Axios, citing Israeli and US sources.
"The Revolutionary Guards took part in the murder of hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians, they destroyed Lebanon; they are involved in murderous suppression of Iranian citizens. They kill Jews simply because they are Jewish, Christians because they are Christians, and Muslims because they don't surrender to them," the statement from the Israeli leaders continued.
"[The IRGC] is a central and inseparable part of the murderous machine of oppression in Iran. Their hands are stained in the blood of thousands of Iranians and trampling the soul of Iranian society," they added.
As stated, Lapid and Bennett didn't spare the American administration from criticism either.
"The attempt to revoke the definition of the [IRGC] as a terrorist organization is an insult to the victims and an erasure of documented reality, which has incontrovertible proof. We have a hard time believing that the definition of the IRGC as a terrorist organization will be rescinded in exchange for a 'promise not to harm Americans.'
"The war on terror is the entire world's mission. We believe the United States will not abandon its closest allies for empty promises from terrorists," their statement concluded.
It should be noted that Bennett and Lapid's public criticism of the Biden administration is a stark departure from Israel's policy of keeping all disagreements behind closed doors and presenting an outward image of solidarity. Their scathing joint statement could possibly be viewed as a new chapter in the Israeli government's relations with the Democratic administration.
Also of note is that the Israeli leaders mentioned America's "closest allies" in the region, a likely reference to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, which are all outraged over the American approach to Iran and the Biden administration's lack of response to Iranian aggression.
Last week an Iranian official said the IRGC's removal from the blacklist had been under discussion as far back as June but that the issue had become more complicated after last summer's election of hardliner Ebrahim Raisi as Iran's president.
The Iranian official said the United States had made clear "they cannot remove it without major concessions from Iran," a stance he said had been rejected by Iran's lead nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani.
The IRGC's political influence in Iran's complex power structure has increased since the election of Raisi, who took office in August and whose government includes dozens of Revolutionary Guard commanders.
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