The Guardian reports:

Benjamin Netanyahu has resorted to increasingly alarmist rhetoric and reportedly put pressure on Israel’s military to take action against Iran as his far-right coalition narrowly trails in the polls ahead of Tuesday’s close-run elections.

The Israeli prime minister posted an AI-generated image of a nuclear mushroom cloud destroying Tel Aviv, telling Israeli voters to choose him or risk nuclear annihilation.

“Anyone who cares about their own physical existence, that of their family, and their loved ones should have a trembling hand before voting for [the opposition],” he wrote in a social media post about Iran’s nuclear programme.

Israel’s Channel 12 news reported that the prime minister and the armed forces chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, clashed in recent days over a directive to the military which could “potentially spark an immediate conflagration with Iran at a very sensitive juncture”, by provoking a miscalculation by Iran. [Continue reading…]