Israeli PM Netanyahu speaks at the JNS International Policy Summit

[00:00:00]Here's the Israeli Prime Minister. He is set to speak right now to the public in English at the JNS conference. This is the international policy summit.

[00:00:16]>> Thank you, Mark Levin.

[00:00:20]Wish I could use you as my advisor.

[00:00:23]Every day.

[00:00:26]You know, in uh in the United States they say that uh President Trump does everything that I ask him to do.

[00:00:36]And in Israel, they say that I do everything he wants me to do.

[00:00:41]Well, neither is true.

[00:00:43]We're leaders of independent and proud countries.

[00:00:47]We stand for our interest. I stand for the interest of Israel.

[00:00:52]>> [applause] >> And for its security.

[00:00:56]>> [applause] >> And often we see eye to eye, sometimes we don't.

[00:01:02]But we respect each other's sovereignty and leadership and commitment to our people.

[00:01:10]Last year, uh standing on this stage, I saw some of you.

[00:01:15]I can't see any of you right now.

[00:01:17]But I saw some dear friends who are here. Richard, thank you.

[00:01:22]Uh we are also we also have the Serbian president of uh Bosnia-Herzegovina. Thank you.

[00:01:28]Thank you, madam.

[00:01:30]We'll have an opportunity to talk tomorrow. There are so many dear friends here.

[00:01:35]And I mean that.

[00:01:38]So, last year, standing on this stage I spoke about decisions.

[00:01:45]Difficult decisions.

[00:01:48]Historic decisions.

[00:01:51]Decisions that many at the time uh Mark, many of those running against me said that I shouldn't have taken at the time.

[00:02:03]They told me not to enter Rafa.

[00:02:06]I entered Rafa.

[00:02:08]I was told >> [applause] >> not to strike Hezbollah. We struck Hezbollah.

[00:02:14]>> [applause] >> They told me not to confront Iran. We confronted Iran.

[00:02:21]>> [applause] >> And today Today I want to begin with a simple question. What have we achieved?

[00:02:29]Because these same people and whatever, their cronies in the press are trying to diminish our achievements. In fact, they're trying to erase them completely.

[00:02:40]So, what is it that we achieved?

[00:02:44]Here is what we achieved.

[00:02:46]We prevented Iran from carrying out a plan to annihilate us, and today they would have had a nuclear weapon, an atomic bomb to do so.

[00:02:56]We prevented that from happening. We removed an existential danger.

[00:03:00]>> [applause] >> And had we not acted, had we not acted in Operation Rising Line, and then in Operation Roaring Line, Iran would have had atomic bombs, and let me tell you something.

[00:03:13]They would have used them. That's what we prevented.

[00:03:19]>> [applause] >> Together with our American friends, the American Air Force, the American military, we carried out the largest air strike in our history.

[00:03:33]We destroyed Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

[00:03:38]We knocked out 20 of their top nuclear scientists. 12 in Rising Line, and another eight in Roaring Line. And when you take out the scientists, it's very hard to make a nuclear weapon.

[00:03:52]Exceedingly hard.

[00:03:54]We decapitated the leadership of the terror regime.

[00:03:57]We shattered their missile industry. We knocked out their navy. We knocked out their air force.

[00:04:03]We attacked their military industries.

[00:04:06]We attacked their bridges. We attacked so many targets that the cumulative damage that we did to the IRGC economy is not counted in the millions.

[00:04:15]It's not counted in the hundreds of millions. It's not counted in the hundreds in the billions. It's counted in hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars and it will take them a long time to recover. A long time.

[00:04:28]>> [applause] >> And they may not recover because once you deal these blows and once the rift between the regime and the people is so deep, you cannot tell when such a regime will fall.

[00:04:39]And it I think we created the conditions for its future fall. That is what will be the real triumph when the Iranian people take their own destiny in their hands and they knock out this brutal regime that is terrorizing them and terrorizing the rest of the world.

[00:04:56]>> [applause] >> But we didn't just confront Iran.

[00:04:59]We shattered Iran's terror axis.

[00:05:02]We took out Sinwar.

[00:05:03]We took out Ania. We took out Def.

[00:05:07]We took out tens of thousands of terrorists.

[00:05:10]And despite those who said it couldn't be done, we brought back to Israel every single hostage. Every single hostage. Every last one of them.

[00:05:20]>> [applause] >> That too, uh, some of my critics, they don't want to be reminded of this, but they said, uh, "Stop before Rafa.

[00:05:32]Make a deal.

[00:05:33]Let's get the terrorists. Let's get our hostages out. We don't have to enter Rafa. We don't have to take the Philadelphia quarter. We don't have to take on Hezbollah. And for God's sake, we shouldn't take on Iran."

[00:05:46]But we didn't listen to them and we did it.

[00:05:49]And we got them back because we put our brave soldiers, our incomparably incomparably heroic soldiers, right into their stronghold in Gaza.

[00:06:00]And they capitulated.

[00:06:01]We brought back every last hostage. And it's an achievement that I think the entire people of Israel and the entire people of the free world should be proud of. We brought them [applause] back.

[00:06:19]In Lebanon, we exploded I don't know if to call this the beepers or the pagers. What do you use in America?

[00:06:26]Beepers.

[00:06:27]We exploded the beepers.

[00:06:30]We took out an astrala.

[00:06:32]We decimated Hezbollah's military machine.

[00:06:36]We prevented their Radwan force from invading the Galilee.

[00:06:40]We destroyed over 90% of the 150,000 rockets and missiles that Hezbollah amassed against us.

[00:06:48]We established a security zone in Gaza.

[00:06:51]We established a security zone in Syria.

[00:06:54]We established a security zone in Lebanon. And we shall keep it as long as is necessary to protect our people.

[00:07:01]>> [applause] [applause] >> I'll tell you what other achievement which I think in many ways in many ways as Sarah tells me and I listen to. You know what they say in the Bible?

[00:07:18]Everything Sarah said to Abraham, you know, and what God said, he said, "Everything that Sarah says, you should listen to her."

[00:07:25]Well, I'm not Abraham, but I listen to my Sarah.

[00:07:30]I think the greatest achievement we have made is to break through the barrier of fear.

[00:07:38]For years, people told us, "You cannot attack the soil of Iran.

[00:07:43]Yes, you can do Mossad operations and we did quite a few.

[00:07:47]I authorized many.

[00:07:48]But you cannot send our military to Iran.

[00:07:53]But we changed that. We sent our brave pilots over the skies of Iran and they took out targets, regime targets, terror targets.

[00:08:02]>> [applause] >> Missile batteries, missile production sites and nuclear sites.

[00:08:10]We changed Israel's security doctrine.

[00:08:13]We initiate, we attack, we surprise and we attack those enemies that seek our destruction, that seek to kill us, we attack them before they have a chance to do so. If you know Hebrew, akam lo hargakha, hashkem lo argo. Kill them first.

[00:08:30]>> [applause] >> Now, I came here on the 50th anniversary of my brother's fallen on Entebbe from Mount Herzl at his graveside.

[00:08:50]Yoni fell in Entebbe leading his soldiers in what is regarded as the greatest rescue operation of modern times.

[00:09:03]Entebbe showed that a free people if they mobilize their courage and muster their strength and their will they can overcome the worst tyrannies the worst tyrannies in the world, however threatening, however challenging.

[00:09:21]And indeed, after the Entebbe rescue, the rash of hijacking that uh that uh was covering the entire world, that rash of hijacking stopped, almost stopped completely.

[00:09:36]But the terror regimes did not disappear.

[00:09:40]And in fact, they continue to grow.

[00:09:43]And the worst of them, of course, is Iran.

[00:09:46]The greatest sponsor of terrorism on the planet.

[00:09:50]35 years after Yoni fell in Entebbe in 2010, my father celebrated not far from here, Begin Institute.

[00:10:02]He didn't celebrate. They celebrated for him his 100th birthday.

[00:10:07]And historians spoke of his historical research on the Spanish Inquisition and on the origins of Zionism.

[00:10:15]And um those who knew the story of his actions in the United States to muster support for the Jewish state during World War II, his meetings with Eisenhower and many others, they spoke about that, too.

[00:10:30]And after a day's worth of lectures and compliments and praise, my father came to the stage, unaided. He was 100 years old.

[00:10:44]And he said this.

[00:10:46]He said, "Thank you for Thank you for your compliments. Thank you for these kind words.

[00:10:52]But time is short.

[00:10:54]So, let me get right to the point."

[00:10:57]And here's what he said. Here's the point.

[00:10:59]"Iran vows to destroy the Jewish state.

[00:11:03]The people of Israel are showing the world how a nation should behave when faced with an existential threat.

[00:11:11]Stare unflinchingly at the danger, calmly consider what needs to be done and what can be done, and be ready to enter the fray at the proper moment."

[00:11:24]And then, he ended his words. These are the last public words in my father's life.

[00:11:31]"This leads to my certain belief," he said, "that our people will roll back this danger to our existence."

[00:11:40]Well, >> [applause] >> 16 years later, we did just that.

[00:11:50]And I say to you now what I said at my brother's grave just a few hours ago.

[00:11:56]Today, I said, "No matter what happens in the talks, with an agreement, without an agreement, I pledge to you that Iran, as long as I'm Prime Minister, will never have a nuclear weapon.

[00:12:13]Never.

[00:12:14]>> [applause] >> As long as I am the Prime Minister of Israel, I will not let that happen."

[00:12:24]>> [applause] [applause] >> And I said something else about Lebanon.

[00:12:42]I said, and I repeated here a few minutes ago, "As long as we need to protect our people, we will remain in the security zone in South Lebanon. And the reason The reason is perfectly understood.

[00:12:58]No country would be asked to do otherwise. Now, you imagine the United States across the border, you have thousands, an army of thousands of terrorists, who pelt your cities and your towns with rockets and ballistic missiles and killer drones.

[00:13:15]They kill your soldiers, they kill your citizens, they kill your children.

[00:13:19]And they threaten them every day.

[00:13:22]Well, what would America do?

[00:13:25]Would it say, "Well, there's nothing we can do.

[00:13:28]Let's hold our fire."

[00:13:30]Is that what America would say? No. You know damn well what America would do. It would cross the border, create a security zone, kill the terrorists, and protect its people until the threat is removed. That's exactly what we are doing.

[00:13:45]>> [applause] [applause] >> And let me tell you something else. No country would do it better.

[00:14:01]No country would do it better.

[00:14:03]Because the terrorists do not just target civilians.

[00:14:07]They also hide among their own civilians. They are, by the way, are committing a double war crime in doing that.

[00:14:13]So, the question is, what do you do about it? We target the terrorists.

[00:14:17]But there are some civilian casualties in every such war, in every such urban warfare.

[00:14:23]And normally, the ratio of combatants to non-combatants killed, non-combatants to combatants killed is about 7 to 1, 8 to 1.

[00:14:33]In Gaza, it was much, much lower than that. Despite all the lies and vilifications aimed at Israel. But I asked our people, our research arm in the Defense Ministry, I said, "What is the ratio in Lebanon?"

[00:14:51]And they said to me, today, I just got the document today.

[00:14:55]"Prime Minister, it's 5 to 1." No, not five civilians killed for every terrorist. Five terrorists killed for every civilian that is harmed in the process.

[00:15:07]5 to 1, unheard of, unheard of. Because no army takes goes to such lengths like the Israeli army to target terrorists and minimize civilian casualties. We should be commended for it, not condemned.

[00:15:23]>> [applause] >> We do everything in our power to protect our people.

[00:15:34]We don't have a war with Lebanon.

[00:15:36]We have a war with Hezbollah who terrorizes Lebanon and seeks our destruction.

[00:15:43]And when that proxy of Iran is no longer a threat, when it's dismantled, when it's disarmed, yes, we'll have peace with Lebanon.

[00:15:50]And I look forward to signing it. Uh by the way, Mark, I intend to be here for quite a while.

[00:15:56]I want you to know that.

[00:15:57]>> [applause] >> These and other matters are the interests of security of the State of Israel.

[00:16:08]I've devoted my life to protect the security of the State of Israel. And nothing will change that. Nothing.

[00:16:15]Absolutely nothing.

[00:16:17]>> [applause] >> And I can do so because I have the support of my dear family, my wife and my children.

[00:16:29]But I have the support of the vast majority of the people of Israel.

[00:16:33]Our people are so strong.

[00:16:35]They're so strong.

[00:16:37]Our soldiers are brave. There are no braver soldiers on the planet. They're so heroic.

[00:16:44]>> [applause] >> And we are determined. We are resolved to protect our country, whatever the cost.

[00:16:56]But let me tell you something else that I know troubles every one of you.

[00:17:00]We see the rising tide of terrorism.

[00:17:03]It afflicts every country, every country in the world right now.

[00:17:07]And it afflicts the United States of America.

[00:17:11]And let me tell you how anti-Semitism works down the ages.

[00:17:15]Every since we lost our country and we became defenseless, we were defenseless not only against physical attack, but against the vilifications that often and always preceded them.

[00:17:26]So, we were faced in one country with such vilifications, and that led eventually to either one of two things, either exile or massacre.

[00:17:37]And then we went to another country, and we faced exactly the same thing after the vituperations and vilifications that we are poisoning the wells, that we drink the blood of slain children, that we carry vermin. And by the way, these are the exact lies that continued right up to the Nazi Holocaust. Exactly the lies.

[00:17:57]So, we were faced with these vilifications, and then we were massacred, then we pushed to another country and another country, and the same thing happened over and over and over again.

[00:18:08]Well, here's where the change happened.

[00:18:11]It happened with the rise of the state of Israel and the creation of the Israeli army.

[00:18:17]We may not be able to stop the vilifications. They come and go in a predictable cycle, as my historian father told me.

[00:18:26]But the change is that when they come to slaughter us, we fight back. We don't let them do that. We We fight back and we roll them back exactly as we have done now in the last few years.

[00:18:40]I pledge to you that we will also fight this battle of anti-Semitism around the world. We will fight on the eighth front as well. The battle against our delegitimization, the battle against the calumny that is directed against the Jewish people. But I ask you, Jews of America and the Jews of the diaspora, to do one thing. Stand up.

[00:19:03]Don't cower. Don't be afraid. Fight back because people will only respect us if we respect ourselves. And when they level lies at us, throw back the truth and do it standing up. Stand up for the truth. Stand up for Israel. Stand up for the Jewish people. Stand up for the Jewish future. Thank you all. Thank you.

[00:19:26]>> [applause and cheering] [applause] >> Thank you.