With all of Israel preoccupied by the flurry of investigations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the most incredible strategic statements that has been uttered by an Israeli prime minister in the current era passed almost under the public radar. These words were uttered by Netanyahu in a speech to the attendees of the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 18.

Much attention was paid to the speech because Netanyahu whipped out one of the pieces of the Iranian drone that was felled by the Israeli air force Feb. 10. After he exhibited the piece and explained its origin, Netanyahu said the following: “Israel will not allow Iran's regime to put a noose of terror around our neck. We will act without hesitation to defend ourselves. And we will act, if necessary, not just against Iran's proxies that are attacking us, but against Iran itself.” In other words, according to Netanyahu, Israel will try to put an end to the Iranian-proxy contest and change the rules of the game. Iran will no longer be able to hide behind Hezbollah, Hamas or anonymous Shiite militias. Should Israel identify any terror act as being orchestrated by Iran — whether by Iranian directive, funding, guidance or even mere inspiration — then Israel will retaliate not only against the direct perpetrators, but also against Iran itself. The masquerade party is over, Netanyahu is saying. From now on, Israel will extract a painful price from Iran for its involvement in terror against Israel. 

A day later, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman repeated the message. Again, the message was very clear: No more games, no more immunity. In other words, when something blows up in Tel Aviv under Iranian inspiration, something else will blow up in Tehran, something “Made in Israel.” Iran needs to start paying a direct, high price for its actions against Israel and for disseminating and promoting terror.

The subject came up in the Israeli Cabinet more than a year ago, and it was Education Minister Naftali Bennett who conceived the idea. According to Bennett, the time has come to rip the mask off of the Iranians and start exacting a price from them. Bennett used the following parable: When the land-owning farmer is bitten again and again by mosquitoes, he must dry up the swamp in which the mosquitoes breed. Until the swamp is gone, the mosquitoes will continue to bite the farmer, despite all the methods he invents to destroy these pests. Iran, according to this parable, constitutes the swamp. Israel has no illusions regarding its ability to dry up the swamp completely, but it does want to achieve one thing: the balance of deterrence. And it hopes that this will lead to wise limitation of the mosquitoes by the swamp that created them.