Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett didn’t mince words on Monday: the clock for regime change in Iran starts ticking the moment Israel gets a new government.

Speaking at the Knesset, Bennett unloaded on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership, declaring that his term "began with a civil war, continued with the massacre of October 7, and ends with a historic failure against Iran." He tied any serious effort to topple the Iranian regime directly to political change in Jerusalem.

Bennett promised that under new leadership he would revive the "Octopus Doctrine" - hitting Iran with every tool available while blocking its nuclear path - and fix the IDF’s manpower crisis by ending haredi draft exemptions. “When there are no soldiers, you have to conquer the same point again and again, and that way you can’t win,” he said. “We can restore security to Israel.”

Hardliners and Hawks Slam the Deal

Bennett wasn’t alone. Several hardline and hawkish voices erupted in fury over the reported Trump-brokered US-Iran ceasefire agreement, blasting it as a lifeline to the Ayatollahs that leaves Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, ballistic missiles, and regional proxies largely intact, the jpost.com reports.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was blistering on X:

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was equally blunt:

Yair Golan, leader of The Democrats, went further, calling the deal a strategic disaster engineered while Netanyahu stood “weak, sick, isolated, and lacking influence.” He accused Netanyahu of being “good for Hamas… good for Iran… good for Hezbollah” and declared:

Former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot described an “abyss” between the government’s empty “total victory” promises and the reality of a failed leadership that had abandoned Israeli residents. Centrist Benny Gantz warned that any restrictions on Israel’s freedom of action in Lebanon or withdrawals that endanger the north were unacceptable.

The Core Demand: No More Half-Measures

Across these statements runs a clear through-line: the current government is too weak, too constrained by American pressure, and too compromised to deliver the decisive blow against Iran and Hezbollah. Bennett and Golan explicitly frame real regime-change pressure as something that can only happen after Netanyahu is gone. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, still in the coalition, are already signaling they will not be bound by the deal and will push for maximalist goals anyway.

Defense Minister Israel Katz tried to draw a harder line by vowing the IDF would stay in security zones in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza “indefinitely.” But the louder chorus from Bennett, the hard right, and parts of the opposition is that only new leadership - or at least a complete break from Netanyahu’s approach - can deliver the aggressive, multi-front campaign they believe is necessary.