During his appearance before the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman remarked:
The Iranian threat remains the greatest threat to the State of Israel. Iran is moving forward with its missile program, as well as its military program, with full force, and one does not have to guess what the objective of this missile program is.
Liberman went on to address the different threats that Israel faces and the importance of the home front in defending Israel’s citizens by “erasing any will and motivation the enemy has to mess with us.”
I do not know of any other country that is currently dealing with as many threats as Israel is: ISIS on the Sinai border, Hamas and [Islamic] Jihad in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and al-Qaeda in Syria. All of our enemies are planning to turn the next conflict into an attack on the Israeli home front; on civilian population. It is obvious that in the next conflict there will be an attempt to harm innocent people. This is why the home front is a very high priority for us.
Many have assessed that an improved economic situation for the Palestinian people would reduce the number of terror attacks. However, Hamas takes advantage of worker entry permits and that the increase in entry permits the last few years also saw an increase in terror attacks using said permits. An example brought by Liberman is the city of Hebron. Despite Hebron being a prosperous Palestinian commercial center, it is an extremist hotbed from which many of the recent terrorists emanated.
Liberman warned that while Israel may soon be facing a military confrontation on one of its borders, “if someone is trying to force a conflict on us – every conflict must end [with a decisive victory]. We must erase any motivation our enemies have to test us a second time, if they try to test us a first time. But first we must erase any will and motivation to mess with us.”