Mossad director David Barnea spoke at the agency's Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony. Barnea effectively responded to Shas chairman Aryeh Der, who had claimed that the Mossad was entrusted with a plan to replace the regime in Iran, declared that he had warned about the ballistic missile program, and said the mission in Iran had not yet been completed.
"Those who naively believe that the Holocaust belongs to the past, that in today's reality genocide cannot happen, that there cannot be calls for annihilation, that hatred threatening the existence of the Jewish people cannot grow, are mistaken," Barnea said at the start of his remarks. "The Iranian threat grew before our eyes, in full view of the world, almost without interference."
Barnea added: "We warned time and again about the danger posed by the nuclear program as an existential threat. We warned time and again about the quantities of ballistic missiles threatening Israeli civilians throughout the country, and about the danger posed to us by the Iranian regime. In the end, we took our fate into our own hands. We went to two wars of necessity. In Operation Roaring Lion, the Israel Defense Forces, with assistance from the Mossad, led an unprecedented attack that dealt a severe blow to the Iranian regime. Against those who have pledged to destroy us, against those who hung a giant clock supposedly counting down to our demise."
He also said about Operation Roaring Lion: "At our side, in a strong alliance and historic cooperation with the world's most powerful country, we fought together for the values of justice and freedom. Forty days of intense fighting brought significant achievements, chief among them damaging the enemy's main objective: the destruction of the State of Israel. The Mossad once again operated in the heart of Tehran, we brought precise intelligence to the Israeli Air Force, and we struck the missiles threatening Israeli civilians. But our mission has not yet been completed."
At the end of his remarks, Barnea addressed comments by Aryeh Deri, who told Israel Hayom in an interview that the Mossad was responsible for a plan to replace the regime in Iran: "We did not think this mission would be completed immediately after the fighting died down, but we absolutely planned for our campaign to continue and to be expressed also in the period after the strikes in Tehran. Our commitment will be fulfilled only when this extremist regime is replaced. That regime, which seeks our destruction, must pass from the world. This is our mission. We will not continue to stand by in the face of another existential threat, guided by one clear commandment: Never again."
