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Netanyahu: "I'd Rather Get a Bad Editorial in the Western Press than a Positive Obituary"
(CNBC) Sara Eisen - Asked about his relationship with President Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu told CNBC in an interview on Wednesday: "We agree on the main things. We want to get the nuclear program in Iran finished. We want to make sure that Iran doesn't pose a threat to Israel, to the Middle East, to America, that it doesn't develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, not only to Israel and to every capital in Europe, but to every city in the United States. That's our common goal. That's what we set out to do." "Sometimes, as in the best of families, you have these tactical disagreements. We always find a way to work them out, and we do so as great friends. We can disagree in the morning, and by the afternoon we have common actions....He's been the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House, and he respects me. I respect him. We always find a way to work out our differences." "I think he understands that Lebanon has been taken hostage by Hizbullah....It's an Iranian proxy that...uses Lebanon as a platform to launch terror missiles into our cities, to launch killer drones against our civilians. So if we want to save Lebanon, if we want to get a Lebanese-Israeli peace, as I do, we have to disarm Hizbullah, and we have to demilitarize Lebanon....I know that this is a goal that the President and I share." "The escalation is from Hizbullah. We had a ceasefire, they violated it. Look, the way European leaders cater to radical Islamic minorities in their own countries is shameful because they know the truth....They know we're protecting them as well, but they don't have the guts to stand up and line up with the right thing that will save our civilization against these barbarians." "We're faced with an enemy that wants to destroy our country, that wants to destroy your country, that wants to destroy free democracies everywhere, and spread their terrorist ilk around the globe. So, when we fight Iran and its proxies, we're not only fighting our war, we're fighting your war and, frankly, Europe's war as well." "[Do] I have to stop protecting my people because I'm going to get a bad editorial in the Western press? The answer is no. I'd rather get a bad editorial than a positive obituary. You know, our people have died long enough, and what has changed for us is that the kind of recriminations and the kind of lies that are leveled at the Jewish people over the centuries are now being leveled at the Jewish state. There's no difference. We deliberately kill children, we perform genocide, we're poisoning the wells." "Since the birth of the State of Israel, we're still being vilified, but when they come to slaughter us, we say no more, never again. And we fight back, targeting the terrorists, targeting the aggressors, trying to save the people, trying to save those communities, and believe me, in the Middle East, contrary to what people think, many understand that."