Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces a tough reelection amid corruption allegations, thanked President TrumpDonald John TrumpSanders set for five-state Midwestern swing Tax refunds through March down billion from last year Tariffs on ‘Mexican cars’ are just taxes on American consumers MORE for labeling Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization and said he asked for the designation.
“Thank you, my dear friend, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, for having decided to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization,” Netanyahu said in a tweet in Hebrew on Monday, according to The Washington Post.
“Thank you for responding to another of my important requests, which serves the interests of our countries and countries of the region,” he continued.
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In another tweet written in English, the prime minister omitted the reference to “request,” but said of the president: “Once again you are keeping the world safe from Iran aggression and terrorism.”
Trump’s announcement of the designation on Monday has been widely seen as an effort to boost Netanyahu in Tuesday’s election.
In a tweet on Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned the decision would drag the U.S. into a “quagmire.”
“Netanyahu Firsters who have long agitated for FTO designation of the IRGC fully understand its consequences for US forces in the region,” he said in a tweet. “In fact, they seek to drag US into a quagmire on his behalf. @realDonaldTrump should know better than to be conned into another US disaster.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry, however, called Trump’s decision “significant” and said it was “another step in the policy of maximizing pressure on Iran, led by the United States and which Israel is a partner in,” according to a statement seen by The Los Angeles Times.
The ministry also said the move was the product of an “Iranian terror policy … sowing havoc in the Middle East and the entire world from Syria and Lebanon to Argentina and Buenos Aires.”