(20 Jun 2021) Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett opened his first cabinet meeting on Sunday since swearing in his new coalition government with a condemnation of the newly-elected Iranian president, whom he dubbed "the hangman of Tehran."
Iran's hard-line judiciary chief, Ebrahim Raisi, was elected with 62% of vote. He is already sanctioned by the U.S. in part over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.
Bennett said at the cabinet meeting in Jerusalem that "of all the people that (Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei could have chosen, he chose 'the hangman of Tehran,' the man infamous among Iranians and across the world for leading the 'death committees' that executed thousands of innocent Iranian citizens throughout the years."
He said that Raisi's election as Iranian president was "the last chance for the world powers to wake up before returning to the nuclear agreement and to understand who they're doing business with. These guys are murderers, mass murderers: a regime of brutal hangmen must never be allowed to have weapons of mass destruction that will enable it to not kill thousands, but millions."
Bennett's cabinet also voted on Sunday to establish a formal commission of inquiry into the deadly stampede that left 45 ultra-Orthodox Jews dead at a religious festival last April.
"The commission cannot bring back those who died, but the government can do everything to prevent an unnecessary loss in the future," he said.
Benjamin Netanyahu was unseated as prime minister earlier this month. Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid succeeded in cobbling together a government in the aftermath of Israel's fourth consecutive election in two years.
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