Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) criticized his Democratic colleagues in Congress who have spoken out against Israel’s attack on Iran, calling it “astonishing” to see members of his party treat Israel’s actions as escalatory. 

Fetterman spoke to Jewish Insider on Friday for an interview in the wake of Israel launching its military operation to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities and prevent the regime from acquiring a nuclear weapon. 

The Pennsylvania senator said he could not fathom how some Democrats on Capitol Hill could accuse the Jewish state of launching the strikes to upend the Trump administration’s nuclear negotiations with Tehran.

Fetterman didn’t mention any of his Democratic colleagues by name, but many have been critical of the Iranian strikes. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), for instance, went on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Friday morning and said that Israel’s strike on Iran was “pretty transparent that this was an effort to submarine, to undermine our diplomacy.”

“It was just astonishing to see colleagues criticizing these things. It’s like, do you think you can negotiate with that regime? Do you think you want to run that scenario and allow them to acquire 1,000 pounds of weapons grade uranium? I can’t understand, I can’t even begin to understand that,” Fetterman told JI.

“I can’t imagine why they would say that. Remember, Iran tries to acquire nuclear weapons. Iran has created and spent billions of dollars to build those destructive proxies like Hamas or Hezbollah or the Houthis. Why can’t we talk about that? Why can’t we talk about the absolute imperative to keep Iran accountable for what they’ve done? That’s exactly part of what Israel did last night, as well,” he continued.

The Pennsylvania Democrat praised the opening salvos of the operation as “absolutely spectacular,” citing the “precision in targeting people.”

”They eliminated the generals and those scientists in their beds at their building, and they didn’t take out the whole building. It was just their specific apartments. I mean, that is truly remarkable. … It’s like Beepers 2.0, the kind of things they’ve done. Like I said, I am constantly blown away by the sophistication and their lethality,” Fetterman said, referring to the Israeli pager operation that took out senior Hezbollah leaders.

“I think I might have been the only one openly calling for that [striking the nuclear facilities now]. I’m never going to negotiate with that regime. You can never trust them, and the only thing they’re going to respond to, that they respect, are exactly the kind of things that [Israel] did last night. … Any potential path for an enduring peace in the Middle East, these are the kind of steps that do that,” he added.

Fetterman disputed the narrative that the U.S. supporting Israel in targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities could increase the prospect of a regional war. “If Iran is going to take their big, big swing, they would have done that by now. Just imagine how exposed they are, even how [exposed] they were earlier this year after what Israel had done taking out Hezbollah,” he told JI. 

“Hezbollah ain’t talking tough anymore. They’re not talking about any kinds of actions, they’re just whimpering, and that’s my point. Iran can’t fight for s**t. … They just shot their big shot, a couple junkie rockets, and it’s like, that’s what you’ve got?” Fetterman asked.