Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the claim that Israel dragged the United States into war with Iran while painting an optimistic picture of the future.
In an interview in which Netanyahu heaped praise on President Donald Trump’s leadership, Fox News host Sean Hannity likewise praised Netanyahu while asking him about Operation Roaring Lion, the Israeli code name for Operation Epic Fury. For the first time, Netanyahu addressed the criticism that the prime minister had dragged Trump into Israel’s war, a criticism he openly laughed at.
“That’s ridiculous. Donald Trump is the strongest leader in the world. He does what he thinks is right for America. He does also what he thinks is right for future generations. Frankly, we are partners in that effort, because I devoted my life to securing the life of the one and only Jewish state, and believe me, it’s been a struggle,” Netanyahu said.
The prime minister went on to recount his personal tragic experiences with armed conflict, such as his brother’s death during the famous Entebbe raid in 1976 and his own wounding during a hostage rescue operation.
“I held a fellow soldier in my arms when he was 18, and he died in my arms. I know the cost of war but know sometimes war is necessary to protect us from people who will destroy us. That is what free societies have to understand: freedom is precious. But it has to be protected. You have to understand that we are fighting here, we are fighting the bad guys, we are the good guys,” he said.
Netanyahu then appealed to Americans, arguing that Iran would soon become a threat to the continental U.S. if action wasn’t taken.
“These people massacred their own people. Imagine what they would do, these people chanting ‘Death to America,’ if they had ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads to deliver to every American city. Do we want to wait? Do you want to bet your future on whether they would do it or not?” he said.
Later in the interview, Netanyahu referred back to his answer, arguing that it wasn’t possible for anyone to “drag Trump into anything” because he “does what he thinks is right, and this is right.”
“To act against [Iran] is not a bad thing, it is a good thing. It is about time that the people of the free societies understand that they have to act to protect their freedom and our way of life. We are fighting barbarians. … America under President Trump has entered this fight to protect our civilization and protect our common future,” he said.
Addressing another criticism later on, Netanyahu disputed that the conflict in Iran would drag on.
“This is not an endless war; this is, in fact, something that will usher in an era of peace that we haven’t even dreamed of,” he said.
“It will take some time, but it won’t take years. It’s not an endless war. In fact, it is an effort right now to achieve that peace that we all pray for. And I think, together, we will achieve it,” the prime minister echoed later.
Earlier on Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Israel played a central role in the U.S.’s calculations to go to war as Washington feared an Iranian response to any Israeli strike would target its bases in the Middle East.
“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action,” Rubio said. “We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”
“There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded,” he told reporters, later adding that “we went proactively in a defensive way to prevent them from inflicting higher damage. Had we not done so, there would have been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was going to happen, and we didn’t act preemptively to prevent more casualties and more loss of life.”
Critics of Netanyahu drew parallels between his rhetoric around the Islamic regime in Iran and that around the government of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in remarks before Congress just ahead of the Iraq War.
“We have to remember what we are dealing with here: someone who has gassed his own population; someone that, a little over a decade ago, lobbed missiles into Israel, killing people. And at that time, he did not have the technology that he may have today. And whether it is delivered by a missile or some other means, we have seen that his goal is to destroy not only Israelis but destroy world peace and the United States in the process,” he told Congress in 2002.
RUBIO SAYS ‘IMMINENT’ IRANIAN THREAT TO US WAS KNOWING IT WOULD RESPOND TO ISRAELI ATTACK
“So I think it is time that we get a little starch in our spines and realize the threat we face, that we back the president of the United States. It is nice to have this discussion, but only he is provided with the intelligence and the information on proceeding, and he should make that decision and we should support that decision,” Netanyahu added.
If the Islamic government in Tehran falls, and its proxies along with it, Israel would lose its last overtly hostile rival in the Middle East, completely transforming its geostrategic situation. The Sunni Gulf Arab states, as close U.S. allies, are far less belligerent toward Israel, and several have voiced openness to warming relations with Jerusalem.
