The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has spread this Sunday on his social networks, just 48 hours before the general elections in Israel, an image generated by AI that shows a nuclear detonation over Tel Aviv, accompanied by a warning about a "second holocaust" that, according to him, could be provoked by Iran if it fails to impose itself at the polls.
In the text accompanying the illustration, Netanyahu states that "If the Iranians get nuclear weapons nothing else will matter. Everything else pales in comparison to the existential danger that Iran and the Shiite axis represent." Thus, he places the Iranian nuclear threat as the central axis of the electoral contest.
The Israeli leader has also alluded to the corruption charges against him, calling them "a huge smokescreen" that is "designed to divert attention from the most important issue of all: finishing the job in Iran." In the same vein, he has asked: "If two nuclear bombs fell in the center of the country, who would care about these trivial and empty controversies?".
Netanyahu believes that Israel has the margin of the two remaining years of the mandate of the American president, Donald Trump, to "complete the job in Iran," thus linking the electoral outcome with the window of opportunity that, in his opinion, the current Administration in Washington offers.
In his message, the Prime Minister has insisted that "The hand of anyone who cares about their own physical survival, or that of their family and loved ones, should tremble in doubt before choosing someone incapable of completing this mission," emphasizing that the vote should focus on who is willing to face the Iranian challenge.
Netanyahu's words have provoked a swift reaction among his political rivals. The president of the Yashar party, Gadi Eisenkot, has attacked the "hysterical" message of the Prime Minister and has denounced "This is the same method of lying and scaring that he uses in every electoral campaign. This time he threatens Israeli citizens with mass destruction after failing in his attempt to achieve the objectives of the war in Iran."
In the same critical line, the president of the Democratic Party, Yair Golan, has expressed himself, who has claimed: "I ask that they keep him away from social media. He himself and those around him are lost." Furthermore, he has promised a change of course after the elections: "On Tuesday we are going to replace those who sow panic and restore security and sanity in Israel," he added.
Meanwhile, after the massive event held on Saturday in Tel Aviv, the families of the victims and the kidnapped have taken advantage of Sunday to ask the citizens that, before going to the polls, they keep in mind their loved ones and the suffering accumulated during the conflict.