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Bibi's Back: A Conversation with Israel's New Prime Minister

(Common Sense) Bari Weiss - After the Israeli Knesset elections in November, Benjamin Netanyahu is back, and is now on the cusp of his third stint as prime minister of Israel. I spoke to Prime Minister Netanyahu on the eve of his return to power. "Israel is the one country that is openly targeted for destruction, first by the Arab world, which happily has changed...but also now by non-Arab Iran, which openly declares its goal of annihilating the State of Israel off the face of the Earth....We can defend ourselves finally against these forces in ways that were unimaginable a century ago." "To achieve the prosperity, security and permanence of the State of Israel, my belief was that Israel has to be very powerful. It's not enough to be moral. It's not enough to be just. It's not enough to be liked. It doesn't even make a difference. If you're weak, you don't survive in our area." "If you ask, what is my goal now? The first thing is to prevent Iran from annihilating us....The second is to expand the circle of peace beyond our imagination. Saudi Arabia would be a tremendous achievement, to have peace with them, because it would effectively end the Arab-Israeli conflict....The Palestinians are 1-2% of the Arab world, but they're the tail that's wagging the Arab body. I'll get there, too, but I think that it'll be easier to get there if you end the Arab-Israeli conflict." Asked about forming a coalition with MK Itamar Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu said, "First of all, his eligibility to be a coalition member and a minister was determined by none other than the Supreme Court, and they gave him complete clearance....The second point is [that]...the main policy or the overriding policy of the government is determined by the Likud and, frankly, by me....I've often heard these doom projections, but none of them materialized. I maintained Israel's democratic nature....Israel is not going to be governed by Talmudic law. We're not going to ban LGBT forums....We're going to remain a country of laws." "I was removed from office [in 1999] and in came my successor, Shimon Peres, and later Ariel Sharon and Olmert and Barak and so on. They didn't achieve peace with the Palestinians. Why didn't they achieve peace with the Palestinians? Because the Palestinians don't want peace with Israel. They want peace without Israel. They don't want a peaceful state next to Israel. They want a state instead of Israel. That's the obstacle that has prevented peace for a century."
2022-12-01 00:00:00
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