Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered an English version of his previous remarks to Israeli media in Hebrew on Wednesday night, rejecting the idea that it would be permissible to use hostage negotiations to survive a war started by Hamas. .
Netanyahu’s reaction comes amid ongoing negotiations over a deal to release some 136 Israeli hostages, at least 32 of whom are believed to be dead, in exchange for a cessation of fighting in Gaza. It was made after details of Hamas’ counterattack proposal were revealed.
Hamas wants Israel to completely withdraw its troops from Gaza and cease fighting, but those terms are unlikely to be accepted by Israel. He also demands the release of thousands of convicted Palestinian terrorists serving long sentences, among other conditions.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is on diplomatic missions to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, had already met with Netanyahu by early Wednesday when he spoke. .
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statement was therefore as much for American consumption as it was for Israeli consumption. The full text is as follows:
Tonight I want to talk about complete victory.
Our security and the prospects for peace in the Middle East depend on one thing: complete victory over Hamas.
At the beginning of the war, I outlined three goals: destroy Hamas, free the hostages, and ensure that Gaza poses no future threat to Israel.
Achieving these goals will ensure Israel’s security and pave the way for further historic peace agreements with its Arab neighbors.
But peace and security require a complete victory over Hamas.
We cannot accept any other requests.
Can you imagine what would happen if we didn’t win completely?
Hamas leaders have already vowed to repeat the October 7 massacre over and over again.
No country can accept it. We never are.
Without a complete victory, Iran and its terrorist organizations (such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis) will be emboldened to overthrow moderate states in the Middle East. They will threaten the entire free world.
Only a complete victory can prevent it.
And complete victory is within our reach.
Israel’s military achievements are truly unprecedented. John Spencer, director of urban warfare at West Point, said: It took the United States and its allies nine months to defeat ISIS in Mosul. Mosul was a single city, smaller than Gaza, with no terrorist tunnels and only 5,000 terrorists. But in four months, the IDF killed, wounded, or captured more than 20,000 terrorists, more than half of Hamas’s fighting force.
We have crushed 18 of Hamas’ 24 battalions and are mopping up the remaining terrorists with continued raids.
Our soldiers are systematically destroying huge underground horror tunnels. Hamas believed this to be an impregnable network.
But our brave soldiers are now physically inside these tunnels. They are destroying rocket factories, weapons storage facilities, command and control centers, and safe housing that Hamas considered unreachable.
Now, I have to say, we have been told repeatedly by many in the international community that all of this is simply impossible.
They say that ground attacks are ineffective, that they cannot enter Gaza City because it would be a hideous death trap, and that they cannot enter the hospital that is Hamas’s headquarters without inflicting mass civilian casualties. He insisted that it was not possible. No one could enter the underground tunnel of terror.
However, our brave soldiers proved them all wrong in every respect.
Many argued that an Israeli military operation would undermine our nation’s ability to free hostages. They were wrong on this too. Military pressure led to the release of 110 hostages, but continued military pressure is the only way to bring the remaining hostages home.
Our soldiers are currently in Khan Yunis, a major Hamas stronghold.
They will soon enter Rafah, Hamas’ last stronghold. They intend to do so, as they have always done, by providing civilians with safe passage to safe zones, despite Hamas’s sinister attempts to force civilians to leave at gunpoint. , would.
Complete victory over Hamas will not take years. It will take several months.
Victory is within reach.
When people talk about “the next day,” I want to make one thing clear. This is the day after Hamas was completely destroyed. It’s not half the size of Hamas, it’s not even 3/4 of it. Dear Hamas people.
Once Hamas is destroyed, we need to ensure that Gaza is demilitarized and eradicate any attempts to revive terrorism.
As history has shown, only Israel can do this by providing preferential security control over Gaza.
What does that mean?
That means Israel will stay in Gaza and act in Gaza whenever and wherever necessary to prevent terrorism from rearing its ugly head again.
Gaza must have a civilian government made up of people who do not support terrorism, do not finance terrorism, and do not indoctrinate children with terrorism and the goal of destroying Israel.
In fact, we should seek to do just the opposite: that children in Gaza’s schools be educated for peace, for coexistence.
Well, this takes time, but we’ve seen it happen in other parts of the world and in the Gulf itself.
We welcome the participation of moderate Arab states in creating a different and better future for Gaza.
To this end, it perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem, indoctrinates Palestinian children in schools with genocide and terrorism, and produces among them more than a dozen terrorist killers who took part in the October 7 massacre. There will also be a need for a responsible aid agency to replace UNRWA. .
We are now at a turning point in history, where this region could move toward the light or toward the dark.
We will not allow the dark forces of Iran to win.
Our security and the future of the Middle East require complete victory.
A complete victory over Hamas could bring us the gift of further peace.
Our principles of peace through strength have already led to the Abraham Accords, and a complete victory will help us bring about an even more historic peace agreement.
Hamas is an obstacle to a better and more peaceful Middle East and threatens Israel’s security.
World pressure should be on destroying Hamas as soon as possible, not on preventing the destruction of Israel.
All people who aspire to peace should support our quest for complete victory.
A complete victory for our safety.
A complete victory for peace in the region.
A complete victory to protect our common future.
Blinken later accused Israel at his own press conference of trying to “dehumanize” the Palestinians, without evidence.
Joel B. Pollack is a senior editor at Breitbart News. Breitbart News Sunday Sunday nights from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM ET (4:00 PM to 7:00 PM PT) on Sirius XM Patriot. He is the author of the recent book, The Zionist Conspiracy (And How to Participate in It), now available on Audible. He is also the author of an e-book. Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 US Presidential Election. He is the recipient of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter @joelpolak.
