Israel will not allow Iran to establish a presence in Syria along the Israeli border, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu explained Israel’s two overriding principles when it comes to defending itself from Iran: “First, prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons and second, to prevent Iran — in any situation that arises in Syria, with or without an agreement — from establishing itself militarily in Syria, on the ground, in the air or at sea. We are also determined to prevent it from bringing about the establishment of Shiite militias, which it is organizing, and of course, the arming of Hezbollah with dangerous weapons aimed at us.”

Netanyahu made similar comments when visiting Moscow in June. “Iran will not be allowed, using Hezbollah, to use Syrian territory to attack us and open up another terrorist front against us in the Golan,” he told Russian media.

Hezbollah and its patron Iran are determined to set up a front against Israel on the Golan Heights, which Israel has repeatedly acted to counter. In January 2015, an Israeli airstrike killed Iranian and Hezbollah commanders who were attempting to establish terrorist infrastructure on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. Four months later, the Israeli Air Force struck a weapons shipment convoy on the Syria-Lebanon border. Last December, Samir Kuntar, a Hezbollah-affiliated terrorist who was imprisoned for decades for the murder of an Israeli father and his four-year-old daughter in 1979, was assassinated after reportedly working to build up Hezbollah’s infrastructure and attack capacity on the Golan.

[Photo: Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs ]