Transcript 

Question from journalist:  

“France says that they will support Palestinian statehood in the next short while. You’ve described that as a reward for Hamas here. Other countries like Australia are also walking down this path. Not quite there yet. How much of this is a reward for Hamas, and how much of it is actually countries like those who have repeatedly said Israel does have a right to defend itself, but are now struggling to stomach what they’re saying you and your military are doing in Gaza?”

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Response: 

“Well, first of all, those who say that Israel has a right to defend itself are also saying, but don’t exercise that right. When we do what any country would do, faced with this genocidal terrorist organization that has performed the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust, I think we’re actually applying force judiciously. And they know it. They know what they would do if they’re right next to Melbourne or right next to Sydney.

You had this horrific attacks.  I think you would do it, at least what we’re doing, probably─ maybe not as efficiently and as precisely as we’re doing it. We’ve lost quite a few soldiers in that effort. But, that’s the first thing.

I think that, the second thing you ask is a Palestinian state.

Well, the assumption, the prevailing assumption, in this, is that the problem that we have with the Palestinians is the absence of a Palestinian state. And if they were given a Palestinian state, they would stop the efforts to destroy the Jewish state. But the Palestinians were offered a state many times, including in the partition resolution, and they turned it down.

They were offered statehood by my predecessors with lavish, lavish concessions. They turned it down. Because the Palestinians are not about creating a state; they’re about destroying a state. That’s why they opposed the Jewish national movement to create a state.  It’s called Zionism. They opposed it before the inception of the Jewish state, and they’ve opposed it since. They’ve opposed it when they had Judea and Samaria, the West Bank and Gaza in their whole.

They didn’t say, let’s start, let’s create a state there. They didn’t say that, because, again, their goal is the destruction of a state. It defies imagination or understanding how intelligent people around the world, okay, including seasoned diplomats, government leaders and respected journalists, fall for this absurdity.  It’s so easy to verify, you know.   

And look at the PA.  Okay.  Look at the Palestinian National movement today is divided between two forces: The Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria, and Hamas in Gaza. Okay.

Hamas in Gaza had a de facto state. It had a state and it used it to launch a war of terror against Israel, because their doctrine, that is, that the destruction of Israel should proceed with forceful and direct military and terrorist moves. That’s what they did on October 7th. That’s what they’ll do again if we don’t destroy them.

The Palestinian Authority, on the other hand, says, ‘No.  First, Israel has to be reduced to indefensible boundaries. You’ve got to get them out.  With the ICC, with the UN, with the Security Council resolutions: Drive them to indefensible boundaries and then deliver the blow, because Israel is too strong in its present configuration.’

These discussions are open. They’re held. Anybody─ you don’t need Israeli Intel for it, believe me. You can just scour the web, you’ll find it. Okay.

So they have no difference about the goal. That’s why the Palestinian children in Judea and Samaria and the Palestinian children, that is, the Palestinian children under the PA, and the Palestinian children under Hamas are educated with exactly the same textbooks. That’s why the PA calls its public squares against mass killers of Jews. That’s why they have pay for slay: The more Jews you murder, the more you get paid. Or your family gets paid.

I mean, so that that’s the crux of the problem. The real reason that this conflict persists is not because of the absence of a Palestinian state, but the persistent Palestinian refusal to recognize a Jewish state in any boundary.

Now, when you give them a Palestinian state, when they haven’t abandoned the goal of destroying the Jewish state, all you’re doing is you’re making, you’re bringing the next war closer. Again, Hamas had a state. You just brought the war closer. And if you did the same thing in Judea and Samaria, right above Tel Aviv, enveloping Jerusalem, some say cutting Jerusalem into two, that’s all that’s gonna happen.

You’re going to have the radicals again take it over, Iran, take it over, and start a state from improved boundaries, start a war with improved boundaries. That’s not going to happen.

I think the solution to this problem is that the Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves in the places where they live, and none of the powers to threaten Israel.

They should obviously reform their whole education system. They should reform their whole historical outlook and say, ‘All right, you know, we accept that Israel is here to stay,’ not as a fact, as a physical or geographic fact, but as a fact of historical equity. You know, if they want to live here, next to us, they have to stop seeking our destruction. 

And to give them an independent state, with all the trimmings, is to invite a future war and a certain war. And that’s something that, today the Israeli public forcefully opposes. Before the war, by the way, it was about, you know, a third [for a Palestinian state] / two thirds [against], in the overall population. Probably 60 [against a Palestinian state]/40 for a state.  Or even more, against [a state] in the Jewish population.  But now it’s changed more dramatically [to more against a state].

I mean, we had a vote in the Knesset, a few months ago, about the possibility, you know, of having a Palestinian state. And the result was 99 to 9.  99 to 9.  And that covers a very broad spectrum. And today most of the Jewish public is committed – is against the Palestinian state for the simple reason that they know it won’t bring peace, but it’ll bring war.

To have uh, European countries, and Australia, march into that rabbit hole – just like that, fall right into it ─ and buy this canard is disappointing.   And I think it’s actually shameful. But it’s not going to change our position. Again, we will not commit national suicide to get a good op-ed for two minutes.

We won’t do that. Thank you very much.”

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