Binyamin Netanyahu

Press Conference for the International Media on the Future of Gaza

delivered 10 August 2025

Audio mp3 of Address       Audio AR-XE mp3 of Address

 

[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio.]

Good afternoon. I'm glad you came here because I'd like to take the opportunity to puncture the lies and tell the truth.

The truth is that Hamas still has thousands of armed terrorists in Gaza. It vows to repeat the savagery of the October 7th massacre, and to do so again and again and again. It openly professes its goal to destroy the State of Israel. It subjugates Gazans; it steals their foods; it shoots them when they try to move to safe zones. And I think it’s instructive that, now, many Gazans are fighting back. They're begging us; they're begging the world: "Free us!" "Free us and free Gaza from Hamas."

No nation can accept a genocidal terrorist organization, an organization committed to its annihilation a stone’s throw from its citizens. Our goal is not to occupy Gaza. Our goal is to free Gaza, free it from Hamas terrorists. The war can end tomorrow if Gaza, or rather if Hamas lays down its arms and releases all the remaining hostages.

Gaza will be demilitarized.

Israel will have overriding security responsibility.

A security zone will be established on Gaza’s border with Israel to prevent future terrorist incursions.

A civilian administration will be established in Gaza that will seek to live in peace with Israel.

That’s our plan for the day after Hamas. And let me summarize it -- Five principles for concluding the war:

One, Hamas disarmed.

Second, all hostages freed.

Third, Gaza demilitarized.

Fourth, Israel has overriding security control.

And five, non-Israeli, peaceful civil administration -- by that I mean a civilian administration that doesn’t educate its children for terror, doesn't pay terrorists, and doesn’t launch terrorist attacks against Israel.

That’s what we want to see in Gaza. So, its neither Hamas nor the PA [Palestinian Authority]. That's our plan.

Given Hamas’s refusal to lay down its arms, Israel has no choice but to finish the job and complete the defeat of Hamas. Now, we've done a great deal. We have about 70 to 75 percent of Gaza under Israeli control, military control.

But we have two remaining strongholds. Okay? These are Gaza City and the Central Camps and the Moasi. That's roughly -- it's schematically presented here, but it's fairly accurate.

Last Thursday, Israel's cabinet, Israel's security cabinet, instructed the IDF to dismantle the two remaining Hamas strongholds in Gaza City and the Central Camps. Contrary to false claims, this is the best way to end the war, and the best way to end it speedily.

We will do so by first enabling the civilian population to safely leave the combat areas to designated safe zones. In these safe zones, they'll be given ample food, water, and medical care -- as we have done before. And again, contrary to false claims, our policy throughout the war has been to prevent a humanitarian crisis -- while Hamas’s policy has been to create it. Since the beginning of the war, Israel has let in close to 2 million tons of aid. I know of no other army that enabled -- has enabled such aid to go to the civilian population in enemy territory.

Now, if we had a starvation policy, no one in Gaza would have survived after two years of war. But our policy has been the exact opposite. We let in, as I said, almost 2 million tons of aid and sent millions of text messages, millions of phone calls, to Gazans to get out of harm’s way.

Yet, in the last few months, Hamas has violently looted the aid trucks meant to get to Palestinian civilians. They deliberately created a shortage of supply. And the UN consistently refused, until recently, to distribute the thousands of trucks that we let into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

So that our problem is, we -- we've had tons of collected -- uncollected food rotting on the Gazan side of the border because the UN was, and still is, unwilling to deliver all of it.

Here's -- Here are the tons and tons and tons of humanitarian aid that Israel led in to the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom Crossing, just sitting there because it's not distributed.

So, now we're going to round this -- going to go around this obstacle -- we are going around it -- by doing three things:

One -- Can I show this, please? [to slide presentation operator]. Okay, designating safe corridors for humanitarian aid distribution -- no, that's showing the -- showing the problem, not showing the solution [again to slide presentation operator], but here it is:

First, designating rather safe corridors for aid distribution. You can go, you can drive trucks there, and you'll be safe.

Second, increasing the number of safe distribution points managed by the Gazan humanitarian foundations [sic].

And three, air drops. That's air drops done by the Israeli Air Force and we're inviting others to join us.

The result has been a humanitarian surge, which we are coordinating with President Trump and his team, and hundreds of trucks have gone in, in recent days. This is preventing hunger. But it's not prevented the global campaign of lies that you are -- that we have all witnessed. So, in Gaza, despite Hamas’s obstacles, two million people are now getting access to humanitarian aid.

But I'll tell you who isn't.

The only ones that are being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages. This is Evyatar David. Look at his hand and his arm. He's being deliberately starved by these Hamas monsters. And look at the Hamas captor. Look at the difference. He's eating, and he's eating well.

The purpose of this news conference is to puncture the lies and spread the truth. But that distortion has been -- has been propelled around the earth, almost the way that the Jewish people were maligned in the Middle Ages: Every massacre of the Jewish people was proceeded by massive vilification. We were spreading -- We were said to be spreading vermin to Christian societies. We were said to be poisoning the wells. We were said to slaughter Christian children for their blood. And as these lies spread around the globe, they were followed by horrific, horrific massacres, pogroms, displacements, finally culminating in the worst massacre of them all -- the Holocaust.

Today, the Jewish State is being maligned in a similar way. Everything that I told you could be verified easily -- but it hasn't.

And the international press has bought hook, line, and sinker Hamas' statistics, Hamas' claims, Hamas' forgeries, and Hamas' photographs -- for example, these three children.

The first one is Osama Alakub. He's in Italy getting treatment, because Israel got him out. That's what he looks like today. He has a...genetic disease that damages the lungs and digestive system. It makes it hard to absorb nutrients and gain weight. Okay? So, Israel facilitated Osama's travel to Italy, where he got the medical aid that transformed his position.

The second one is Abdul Khad al-Faumi. He suffers from a genetic neurological disorder, spinal muscular atrophy, a degenerative condition that causes muscle weak -- wasting weakness and severe weight loss unrelated to nutrition. This was the real cause of his frail appearance, not starvation. In fact, he was treated in Israel in 2018 -- doesn't help because it's -- it's a congenital disease and it defies, well, defies most treatment at least.

The third one is the most celebrated one. This is a New York Time[s] cover photo -- it's on the front page -- of Muhamad Zakaria Aub [al-Mutawaq] and his mother. Muhamad Zakaria Aub is suffering from a genetic illness which you're familiar with; it's called cerebral palsy.

His mother is well fed, and his brother is healthy.

I'm looking right now into the possibility of a governmental suit against the New York Times, because this is outrageous. Of course, the correction1 was postage size. I don't know where it was buried, but this is outrageous.

These are the three most celebrated photos, and they're all fake. It's the kind of malignant lies that were leveled at the Jewish people in the Middle Ages we won't suffer. We won't allow it to go unchallenged, and this is the purpose of this press conference. I hope that you open your eyes to a simple fact: Hamas lies.

Now you can ask me any question you want.


[first pass authenticated]

QUESTION: Thank you, Prime Minister. Could you give us, please, a timeline when you expect to conclude the new -- expansion of the new offensive? And if you can give us a few more details about how you're going to provide about this humanitarian surge and how G -- GHF [Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] is going to be involved in this. Thank you.

PM NETANYAHU: Well, the...timeline that we set for the -- for the action is fairly quickly. I mean, we want to, first of all, enable safe zones to be established, facilities to be brought to so the civilian population in Gaza City can move out as they moved out in Rafah, by the way. You remember in Rafah? There were 1.4 million people. People said they can't, you know, "They have nowhere to go" and "They're not going to move out." It took us, I think, about eight days or six days to move them and they all moved. There were practically no civilian casualties because they all left. And they went to the Moassi area that I showed you before on the map.

We think we can achieve a similar result that safeguards the civilian population [and] at the same time enables us to go at the last stronghold, the most important stronghold of Hamas, which we haven't done so up to the war. I mean, we've been there, but we haven't taken it as a goal to dismantle the Hamas stronghold there. We do now. I don't want to talk about exact timetables, but we're talking in -- in terms of a fairly short timetable, because we want to bring the war to an end. This is how we bring the war to an end.

As far as the surge is concerned, we're talking to the U.S. about additional measures, but we haven't waited, because what we're doing, as I said, is designate safe corridors, allow and expand the GHF distribution points; and they're -- we're trying to bring in more resources, hope to recruit some international organizations. Maybe, God willing, the UN, if they ever decide to actually do something for the Palestinian people that doesn't go through Hamas. And third, increase the air drops. The air drops are important, but they're not the most important thing. The most important thing is ground routes that bring aid, a surge of aid, to the Palestinian population as far as we can without letting Hamas loot it.

QUESTION: Prime Minister, two questions. Firstly, why is Israel not allowing foreign journalists into Gaza to report independently? And secondly, President Trump has said there is real starvation in Gaza. Do you disagree?

PM NETANYAHU: Yeah. On the first question, in fact, we have decided, and I've ordered, directed the military to bring in foreign journalists, more foreign journalists, a lot. There's a problem with assuring security, but I think it can be done in a -- in a way that is responsible and careful -- to preserve your own safety. So the -- the directive has been since, when is it, two days ago. From what you're telling me, it hasn't yet been implemented, but it should be, should be, because I think you should see it. And one of the things you're going to see is precisely our efforts to bring in Gazans, to bring in, rather, food to Gaza.

You'll see the trucks that have been -- entered Gaza and are still waiting to be distributed. You'll see Gazans who are fighting Hamas, you know. We haven't seen it since the beginning of the war, you know. And...that's a reflection of the fact that they know that we're approaching the end stage. And these people are, you know, risking their lives and their families. But they say, we -- "we can't take it anymore." And they fight back.

And the other thing you'll see is physical destruction. And the physical destruction is not because Israel is destroying structures with people in there. That's not what's happening. Israel, in fact, is clearing the population, as in Rafah. But the Hamas terrorists who may stay in those areas booby trap just about every single building -- not every single building, but a lot of them; and every road, and every street, and every junction, every intersection. So, one of the things that we do is we place basically old APC armored personnel carriers with tons of explosives and we detonate them and they set off all the booby traps. That's why you'll see the destruction.

And we do similar things in the tunnels. The tunnels, these terror tunnels, we, you know, put TNT in them and we detonate that after people have left. But they're under buildings, so the buildings collapse. That's why you see destruction. You see destruction not because we go after civilian populated areas, but in fact areas that have been cleared of civilians and are still rife with terrorists. And that's how we've been able to reduce actually the civilian casualties and increase of course the terrorist casualties.

I very much appreciate President Trump's support through this entire seven front war, his magnificent cooperation in the battle to stop the existential threat from Iran, his support throughout, and his support now. He says two things. He says, "all 20 hostages have to be released." And he says, "Hamas should not be there." And I think that he, like me, he recognized the fact that there have been deprivations in Gaza caused by Hamas. Hamas has been the cause of that. And what we have to do is overcome it, so we're working together to overcome it.

QUESTION: Thank you, Prime Minister. Is Israel working, proceeding in the belief, in the understanding, that it can and will recover all 20 hostages alive militarily? Or is it proceeding in the belief or understanding that conditions of their captivity, Hamas strategy, will make that impossible?

PM NETANYAHU: Look, my goal is to get all of the 20 out alive and also all the ones who are not alive. In the beginning of the war, we were told by a very senior commander, he said, "Look, we have to get used to the idea that we're not going to see even one of them alive." And I disagreed. I said, we'll get most and possibly all of them if we apply judiciously both military pressure and political, diplomatic pressure. So far, out of 255 hostages, we got 205 out, of which 148 are alive. 148 are alive. We have 20 alive -- living ones left in Hamas captivity, and 30 who are not alive, as I said before.

If we don't do anything, we're not going to get them out. The option of just doing a -- a war of attrition from defensive positions has not proved itself. And I think it will just -- It won't get them out, but I think it will draw us into a protracted conflict that doesn't bring the war to an end. The move that I'm talking about I think has the possibility of getting them out. We're talking about how to -- I -- I don't want -- I don't want to go into details, but how to get the remaining hostages alive as we close in on Hamas. And there are various ways that I think, creative ways, that this can be done, but again, I won't go into that now.

QUESTION: Thank you, Prime Minister. Two questions, please. You've seen -- You've just shown the horrific photo of Evyatar David, who's kept hostage in Gaza. We know that the hostage day -- hostages' days are numbered. So how will prolonging the war bring them home? And second question, you stated that Gaza would not be -- would be passed to civilian governance that is not Hamas and not the Palestinian Authority. Can you specifically identify who this civilian governance would be? Do you have any concrete entities or individuals in mind? And in the -- is there a timeline for establishing this administration?

PM NETANYAHU: Yeah, well, I don't want to prolong the war. I want to end the war. And I think the other suggestions would have prolonged it. We may have gotten a dripping, maybe a dripping of hostages, even though Hamas showed no willingness to do that. And then they just go on and on and on, and we'd have this endless -- unless you are willing to just say "Israel capitulate," you know, "go out." And even then, I don't think we'll get all the hostages. And if we capitulate, it means that Hamas will re-arm, regroup, and carry out all the threats that it openly professes -- every day, by the way. Every day, they say, "We're going to do the October 7th massacre again and again, and we're going to destroy the state of Israel." You can't leave them there, you know. So, we're not going to do that. So, my goal is not to prolong the war. My goal is to end the war, and I think that prolonging the war means that many of them could be starved to death. That's exactly the point. I don't want that.

As far as the specific partners for the civil governance of Hamas were actually, I think the five principles are generally widely accepted. And it's instructive that some of the Arab countries, quite a few of them actually, said that Hamas has to be disarmed. I think this is the starting point. And look at what is happening in Lebanon as a result of our action. The Lebanese government, the new Lebanese government is talking about disarming Hezbollah, you know. Who would have believed it? Well, some of us did. I did. And that's -- that's changing the Middle East, as I promised to do on the second day of the war. I think in this case, if we succeed in this effort to basically end the war by defeating Hamas and its remaining strongholds, there are several candidates, there are several candidates that we're talking about, several constructs. And it's a transitional period. It's a transitional authority.

It's going to be there because we don't want to -- contrary to what I said -- we want a security belt, but right next to our border, but we don't want to stay in Gaza. That's not our purpose, at least not my purpose. And I openly [state it], including to those who disagree with me, and there are some who do. But I think that our goal is to make sure that Hamas isn't there and that what replaces Hamas does not educate for terrorism, pay for terrorism, launch terrorism, but is willing to live in peace. There are candidates. I don't want to -- I don't want to spoil the chances of succeeding here because I think they're real, but they're real providing we finish the job. See, no one's going to go in there if we don't finish the job. We can talk about the day after until eternity. No one's going to go in there unless we finish Hamas, and we're able to finish Hamas. And we will finish Hamas.

QUESTION: Yes, Welt TV, Germany. Thank you Mr. Prime Minister. So, the German Chancellor has once again defended his decision not to send weapons to Israel which can be used in Gaza. He said a friendship can and must withstand that. From your perspective, what has changed in this relationship?

PM NETANYAHU:  Look, I respect Friedrich Merz. I think he's been a good friend of Israel. But I think he's buckled under -- buckled under the pressure of...false TV reports; the pressure, internal pressure from various groups. And I can say this, and I don't want to talk about him specifically, but I want to say this. Look, maybe some choose to forget October 7th. We will not forget what happened. And we will do whatever it takes to defend our country and defend our people, defend our future. We will win the war with or without without the support of others.

But, I think that -- I think there's an issue here. And the issue is many leaders tell me, "Look, we know you're right, but we can't stand," you know, "in the face of the public opinion in our country." Especially European leaders -- they tell me that over and over again. And I say, "That is your problem. It is not our problem." It is not our problem, you know.

In Munich, everybody celebrated Munich. Everybody celebrated the capitulation in Munich, the Munich Peace Conference. Peace in our time. Okay? And everybody lambasted Churchill, who opposed it. So what? The difference now is, maybe they thought then that there was a real chance for peace by succumbing to these -- to the Nazis. But I don't believe anybody seriously thinks that now. And we're facing neo-Nazis. You know, Chancellor Mertz's predecessor was here, okay? And...on the first or second day of -- he was there on the -- the first days of the war. And he told me, he said to me, they're exactly like the Nazis. And they are.

And we're not going to leave -- we're not going to leave the Nazi, the remainder of the Nazi army, you know, in the equivalent of Berlin, you know. "Don't go into Berlin." And, "Don't finish off the -- the Nazi army, the German army." Of course not. I mean, that's what people are telling us to do. And I'm not going to do it. And the Israeli people are not going to do it. We're going to do it. And we have enough criticism within, but the majority of the people, if you really check it, the majority of the people say, that's a -- "That's a result we can't afford if we want to live here." So we're going to do what we need to do. And I hope that Chancellor Mertz changes his policy. And you know when he'll change his policy for sure? When we win.

QUESTION: Thank you, Prime Minister. You talked about the seven-front battle. There's an eighth front, the propaganda war, the information war. Is Israel winning or losing this war? And also, have you spoken with President Trump since the security cabinet approved this plan? If so, can you share some of the details of that conversation? If not, do you plan on speaking with him at some point soon? And is he planning to also come to Israel at some point? Thank you.

PM NETANYAHU: Well, I suggest you ask him that. But I have -- no I spoken to him since [inaudible]. Yes, I intend to speak to him very soon. You asked about, sorry, could you repeat the first part of the question?

QUESTION: The first part was about the propaganda war.

PM NETANYAHU: Ah, the propaganda war? Look, no, I think that we've not been winning it, to put it mildly. I think there are vast forces that are arrayed against us; among other things, the -- the algorithms of the social network that are driving a lot of everything else, you know.
And people who really know, and they're the foremost -- foremost people in this field in the world, they're telling me that about 60% of the responses on the social media are bots. They can categorically say they're bots. And they're bots that, you know, especially in America, you know, they want to attack the -- the support that Israel has from the Republican side. So, they -- they describe themselves as homespun Southerners, except they're writing from Asia somewhere, you know. That's -- That's a big issue. We have to contend with it.

And we also have to -- have to stand up and tell the truth, probably at greater frequency than we're doing now. That's exactly what I'm trying to do now. But again, if you want to win this war, end it speedily. End it speedily. Expose the lies as much as you can. End it speedily, and that's how you win the war. You win the war, this -- the propaganda war, by -- by winning the war and winning the peace. That's the simplest way to do it. And it's about time to do that.

QUESTION: Thank you, Prime Minister. Given what the IPC says is the unfolding spectre of -- of famine in the Gaza Strip, would you accept that your 11-week blockade, complete blockade on Gaza, played a role in that? And also, given the killings that we have seen at the GHF aid sites, how will you guarantee that that kind of disaster will not happen when you have a million more people displaced? Thank you.

PM NETANYAHU: Well, number one, the -- the problem that we had was trying to stop -- stop Hamas looting. There's no question there was Hamas looting. Everybody saw it, could see it, Hamas terrorists taking over trucks and so on. We tried to do two things simultaneously: stop -- stop the trucks and bring in the trucks through the GHF distribution points. Okay? It wasn't successful. And it wasn't successful, among other things, because Hamas interdicted also the GHF program, the distribution point. So Hamas created this problem, and it was directed against us. Immediately, we have a starvation policy, which is completely false, any more than we have a genocide policy, which is equally false. We don't. Not this, not that. I don't know of a country that texts millions of messages to -- to civilians to get out of harm's way, giving up the element of surprise, or calling them individually on cell phones. Yet, Israel is accused of genocide. It's absurd. Or starvation policy.

But there was a problem of deprivation, no question about it. And so we had to solve it. And the way we solve it is the way I described it to you. And there are now, not zero trucks, at least in, I think last time I checked, hundreds of trucks that went into Gaza. That's alleviating the situation. Now we have to, we want to increase the number, the number of distribution sites, so there's just not, basically you -- you answer this problem or you solve this problem by the law of supply and demand. If you have a lot of supply, if you flood Gaza with food, which some of it will be pilfered, there's no way to get around that, will be looted by Hamas, but you'll have -- if enough food reaches the marketplace, so to speak, then you'll see a difference. And you know what the difference is? How do we know for sure there's a difference? Because we monitor, as any one of you could, the price of food in Gaza. It's plummeted. It's plummeted ever -- ever since that we decided to take the -- to do the humanitarian surge. And it'll plummet more if other countries join us.

So, I called on other countries to join in the airdrops. I actually called them to help persuade the UN to move those trucks. Because every truck that goes in brings down the price of food. That's what happens. And when you have no -- no shortage like that, then you don't have also the crowding around distribution points. And by the way, a lot of the firing was done by Hamas, seeking to have response by our forces. And very often, they didn't. They held back. They stayed their fire, even though their own lives were on the line.

Yeah.

MODERATOR: We're done? Thank you, Prime Minister.

PM NETANYAHU: We're done?

QUESTION: [off-mic inaudible] ABC News Australia.

PM NETANYAHU: Well, I couldn't resists that one. Who --

QUESTION: [off-mic inaudible.] from ABC News Australia.

PM NETANYAHU: Okay.

QUESTION: [off-mic inaudible] Matthew Doran from ABC News Australia. You've seen countries such as the UK, Canada, France say 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 seeing you and your military doing in Gaza?

PM NETANYAHU: 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 -- I think you would do at least what we're doing probably, maybe not as efficiently and as -- 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 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 [unclear]. 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 -- the Jewish national movement to create a state 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 the Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, and Gaza in their home. 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.

Look at the PA, okay? Look at -- the Palestinian National Movement today is divided okay, divided between two forces. Okay? 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. And 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 it. Okay? You can just -- just scour the web -- you'll find it. Okay? So, they -- they have no difference about the goal. That's why the Palestinian children in -- 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 -- in any boundary. Okay?

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 going to 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...we accept that Israel is here to stay, not as a fact, as physical or geographic fact, but as a -- 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, okay, 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, about a third, two-thirds in the overall population. Probably 60-40 or even more...against in the Jewish population. But now it's changed more dramatically. I mean, we had a vote in the Knesset a few months ago about the possibility of, 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 -- And today, most of the -- the Jewish public is committed -- is against the Palestinian State for the simple reason that they know it won't bring peace; it'll bring war. To have European countries and Australia march into that, march into that rabbit hole, just like that, fall right into it and by this, this canard is disappointing. And I think it's, it's actually shameful. But it's not going to take. It's not going to change our position. Again, we will not commit national suicide to get -- to get a good op-ed for two minutes. We won't do that.

Thank you.


1 The New York Times correction in full: "An article on Friday about people in Gaza suffering from malnutrition and starvation after nearly two years of war with Israel lacked information about Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, a child suffering from severe malnutrition and whose photo was featured prominently in the article. After publication of the article, The Times learned from his doctor that Mohammed also had pre-existing health problems. Had The Times known the information before publication, it would have been included in the article and the picture caption." [Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/pageoneplus/editors-note-july-30-2025.html]

Original Text (Opening Statement Only) and Image #5 Source: https://www.gov.il/en/pages/event-press-conference100825

Original Images #1-4 and #8 Source: YouTube screenshots

Original Image #6 Source: nytimes.com

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