Full Script: Prime Minister Netanyahu at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations

*Remarks by Prime Minister Netanyahu at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations**

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks today (Sunday, 15 February 2006), at the Conference of Presidents of major American Jewish organizations*:

“I just came back from the United States, for a very important meeting with President Trump. Obviously, the focus was on Iran. The President is determined to exhaust the possibilities of achieving a deal which he believes can be achieved now, because of the circumstances that have been created, the force projection, and the fact that, as he says, Iran must surely understand that they missed out last time, and he thinks there is a serious probability that they won’t miss out this time.

I will not hide from you that I expressed my skepticism of any deal with Iran, because, frankly, Iran is reliable on one thing, they lie and they cheat. But I said that if a deal is to be reached, it should have several components that we believe are important, not only for the security of Israel, but for the security of the world, the United States, the region, the world.

The first is that all enriched material has to leave Iran. The second is that there shall be no enrichment capability. Not stopping the enrichment process, but dismantle the equipment and the infrastructure that allows you to enrich in the first place. And the third is to deal also with the questions of ballistic missiles. There’s an MTCR limitation of 300 kilometers, and Iran is supposed to adhere to it. Of course, it doesn’t, as the Rising Lion operation by itself manifested, everybody knows that.

And the fourth is stop, dismantle the axis of the terror that Iran has built. It’s been smashed, but it’s still there. It’s trying to recover, as Iran itself is trying to do. And the last thing is, remember Ronald Reagan’s dictum vis-a-vis the Soviet Union? “Trust but verify”? Distrust, distrust, and always verify. So there have to be real inspections, substantive inspections, no lead-time inspections, but effective inspections for all of the above. These are the elements that we believe are important for the achievement of a deal. And I presented our position very clearly.

We also spoke about Gaza. I think we set out, when we went to – after we were massacred on October 7 – we set up three goals vis-a-vis Gaza. The first one was to return all the hostages. The second was to disarm or dismantle Hamas’s military capabilities, and the third is to dismantle Hamas’s governing capabilities.

The first has been achieved, with the help of the United States and first of all, with the help of our brave soldiers, our incomparably courageous soldiers; the support that we got from President Trump and his team; the support we got from you and so many around the world; and the decisions that we made, not to cower and not to submit to the pressures that were put on us from outside and from inside, we stood our ground. We got every single one of these people out, including the last hero – the last hero – Ran Gvili, incredible hero. But there are so many others. We stood our ground there.

We also stand our ground on the other two things that have to happen under President Trump’s 20 point plan, when we move to Phase B. What has to happen is that Hamas must first be disarmed and then Gaza must be demilitarized. Disarmed means that it must give up – its weapons, not “main” weapons. People said “heavy weapons” — there are practically no heavy weapons in Gaza. There’s no artillery, there are no tanks, there’s nothing.

The “heavy” weapon, the one that does the most damage, is called an AK-47, okay? That’s it. That’s how they execute people. That’s how they shoot our people. That’s what they used, assault rifles – that’s what they used in the massacre of October 7. That’s what they used. That’s what they – they did the worst massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust with AK-47. 60,000 of them, they have to go – outside. Obviously, RPGs, rockets and so on, but that’s the main weapon, and that has to go.

So first, disarm Hamas, and second, demilitarized Gaza – what does that mean? They still have tunnels there. We dismantled about 150 kilometers of 500 kilometers of tunnels. We have to complete the job. That means also that you can’t hide weapon labs or other facilities that they use to rearm themselves, regroup and reform, which they’re trying to do.

We’re giving the President’s plan a chance. And he put it very succinctly. He said it can be done the easy way, or it can be done the hard way. We hope that it will be done the easy way, because we know the ravages of war. We know what it means to lose people, we know the human cost of war, but that goal has to be achieved, one way or the other – and one way or the other, it will be achieved.

In the meantime, while there’s a cease fire, it doesn’t mean that we can’t do anything. They attack us, including yesterday and today, we killed 13 terrorists. We act in response. We don’t wait, we just do, they don’t have a free rein. But we are giving them the time, giving the ISF, the international security force, and the President’s Board of Peace and the various groups, various bodies that are under it, giving them the opportunity to try to do it the easy way. Again, we shall see, and it will be done. Gaza will not pose a threat ever again to the State of Israel.

Now, obviously, we have other fronts. The most important one is the front of vilification to the Jewish state and the Jewish people and the rampant antisemitism, which I’ll talk about in a minute. But I want to bring to your attention what is happening, because you will not know it if you turn on the television stations and so on – depends which, of course – you wouldn’t know what is happening here.

The most important thing that is happening is that people are coming to us. Nations are coming to us, companies are coming to us. Enormous economic powers are coming to us. Israel has been ranked by The Economist, not a particular fan of me or the State of Israel, in recent years, but it ranked the Israeli economy among the three most vibrant economies in the world just now.

Now, this comes after two years of war, two years, it’s our longest war. It’s even longer than the War of Independence, two years of being savaged in the international media and so on, in the UN and all these associated bodies. Our economy is growing rapidly. Our stock market is at an all time high. The shekel versus the dollar is almost at a 30 year high. Inflation is going down. There’s very little of it. Interest rates have gone down – not enough, more – but it’s at 4% now, it’ll go down further. And the investments in Israel are huge.

Now, why is that happening? One, because we run the economy responsibly. We know how to do that. Two, because the war showed the prowess of Israel, the enormous capacities here, the high tech, deep tech capabilities that astonish the world. That is not only in the military field, it has immediate consequences in the civilian field, and people understand it, so they come here.

Now, as said, countries come here. The Chancellor of Germany was here, at his initiative, “we’d like to talk to you” – about our defense industry, in which they want to invest a very, very large amount of money.

Who’s coming here next week? Narendra Modi. Tremendous alliance between Israel and India, and we are going to discuss all sorts of cooperation. Now, you know, India is not a small country, it has 1.5 billion people. In India, Israel is enormously popular. Enormously popular, did you know that? Yeah, you do. Good, I’m glad you know it, but I want all of you to know it.

And there are other countries that are coming to us, one after the other. There’s been a change, as you know, in Latin America. You know, the first one, obviously, is the constancy of some of our friends, Argentina among them, a tremendous friend – tremendous friend – and deserves tremendous applause, Milei. But there are others. There’s Ecuador and Paraguay and Bolivia and so on. I think there are about seven countries right now, and I’m remiss in not calling their names, but the number is growing all the time. Chile. Any more? Tell me. What? Panama, thank you. Others? Honduras, yes, so have I left out anyone? That’s not a Latin American country.

Well, there are more. There are more in Asia than you could possibly believe, and some of them are reticent about it. Some of them are less reticent. Some of them are open about it. They’re coming because Israel is a powerful engine. It’s a juggernaut, on innovation and technology that is changing the world.

About 10 years ago, I said that Israel will be among the top three cyber powers in the world. I was wrong. Well, I was right, but it’s number two. Israel, tiny Israel, 10 million people, receives more foreign investments in cyber tech, than any other country in the world except the United States. I’m talking about absolute numbers. That’s what we did in 10 years.

Guess what? We’re going to do exactly the same thing in AI. We just signed a major agreement with the United States on AI cooperation. We’re going to do the same thing in quantum. This is our advantage, and we pursue it with a vengeance. Israel is a very strong country coming out of the war. Coming out of the war strong economically, strong militarily, strong technologically, and we intend to be a lot stronger.

Now, why am I telling you this? Because I believe – Oh, and by the way, the United States just issued a Security Council memorandum, and it described its vision of regional alliances and anchor countries, and it called Israel “the model ally”. The model ally. An ally that obviously believes in democratic principles, but is willing to fight for itself. We don’t ask for American boots on the ground. We develop our own arms industry. By the way, that’s something I discussed too with President Trump, with deep appreciation for American support given over the years by both parties, both sides of the aisle, for Israel’s military assistance.

But I said, just as I said when I was first elected in 1996, first time I was elected, I said, we have come of age economically, or we will reform our economy with free market principles, so we don’t really need, we can afford to give up, over a phase period, the economic aid that we were receiving at the time – financial aid, which was 1.2 billion dollars. That was a lot of money in those days. Our GDP per capita at the time was 17,000 dollars, now, it’s going to be, very soon, 65,000 dollars per capita.

Now, that’s not a huge economy, but it’s not a small economy either.

So, we can afford to phase out the financial component of the military aid that we’re receiving, and I propose a 10-year drawdown to zero. Now in the three years that remain in the present memorandum of understanding and another seven years, draw it down to zero. Israel will support itself and does, just as we fight for ourselves.

At the same time, we want to move with the United States from aid to partnership, because we have phenomenally gifted technologists and developers of all sorts of defense systems, and we shared with our friend, the irreplaceable friend in the United States, but we want to have now joint investments. We put in one part, they put an equal part, and we share the fruits. But our goal is to build an independent arms industry in Israel.

I think the entire world understands what kind of world we enter, and that’s something that we intend to do.

I’m saying all this about our capacity to defend ourselves, our strength, because it relates to the last point that I want to make to you. I think people are probably shocked by the waves of antisemitism that are sweeping those societies, free societies, the United States, Europe, Australia, where we had the tragedy on the Bondi Beach and elsewhere, and in America itself. And that is indeed shocking.

Well, it isn’t necessarily shocking if you see the cycles of antisemitism throughout the ages. Yes, antisemitism had a brief respite. It did respite after World War II, after the Holocaust, but it came back. It was quite prominent before World War II. No one here is old enough to have known Father Coughlin. Do you know who Father Coughlin was? You want to describe to them who Father Coughlin was?

Okay, so some of you are old enough. Well, he was an isolationist, he was a rabid antisemite, and so on. And of course, World War II, it was enormously powerful. And then came World War II, and we know the rest, and now it’s rearing its putrid and ugly head again. Okay, it is.

But if you look at the course of Jewish history, then what you see is that this was a fairly constant phenomenon. I mean, once we had lost our land, once we were scattered among the nations, we were ready prey. We were ready prey, and eventually, when there was societal change, the Jews always were blamed.

And we were blamed in antiquity, 500 years before the birth of Christ, people don’t know about the Hellenistic antisemitism that was here in the diaspora. And then what happened in the Middle Ages, you are familiar with, and it happened in modern times. And these attacks on the Jews were always preceded by vilification, horrible vilifications that even so-called civilized and educated people adhered to. “The Jews poisoned the wells”, “the Jews spread vermin”, “the Jews slaughter Christian children to use their blood for baking matzos”. And this goes into modern times. The Nazis basically said the same thing.

And all these, these vituperations, all these slanders, were always accompanied eventually by either exile, or pogroms, or mass murder. That’s what happened to the Jews. One country after the other into modern times.

I think the great change in Jewish history was brought about – I don’t “think” – the great change in Jewish history, which Herzl saw very clearly, was that when the Jews have their own independent state, they will have the independent power to roll back the physical attacks against us.

We suffered, during the diaspora, from two things that converged and created enormous and repeated tragedy. We were at once prominent and weak. And when you are both prominent and weak, you invite a human quality that happens between individuals but also between nations. It’s called envy. And when you envy someone, and you can attack them, then you do. And that is essentially the story of the Jews. It’s a simplification of antisemitism, but it tells you a great deal of what underpinned it.

Well, with the rise of Israel, the Jewish state is definitely prominent, but it is no longer weak. On October 7, they thought they’d do a Holocaust on us. That was the goal. If they could get away with it, they’d murder every last person, every last woman, child, infant, that they could, which is what they did. But we rolled them back after day one, with horrible consequences, we lost 1200 innocent people.

In the Holocaust, October 7 happened every day, 5000 times. 5000 times. We don’t let a day of such tragedy go by. We rolled back our enemies, we’re in the process of destroying the remainder of that terror axis, we can fight back.

And countries are coming to us because we have that strength, and I submit to you that that strength is something that we have to display in every country, in Australia, in Europe, in the United States, everywhere.

I say to you, in front of these vilifications, do not cower. Do not bend. Do not bow your head. Fight back, because people respect those who respect themselves. And the minorities that fought back, whether it’s the blacks or the gays or women, they fought back. And what we have to do as Jews, both here in Israel and in the various Jewish communities around the world, beginning with the United States, is to fight back.

Silence will not help. Looking askance will not help, fight back. That’s what I tell you. That’s what I tell young Jewish students that I meet. I’m very proud of them. When I meet them, I see that they have this inner fire. But it must be a policy: we fight back.

There’s going to be a media war. There’s a digital war. Yes, I know all of that, and we’re going to fight it together. But the most important thing is that you are willing – God, I hate to borrow this phrase – fight, fight, fight! You have to fight back. The first requirement to defeat antisemitism is to fight antisemitism. It’s the only way. There’s no other way.

We do so, obviously, on the battlefield and the physical manifestations of those who want to slaughter us, and we’re very successful in. But we have to do it on the information level or the disinformation level as well.

And I guarantee you that if we do so, the Jewish future, as you see in this remarkable state, the Jewish state, the state of our people, will have a remarkable future.

Thank you for your consistent, unqualified, unfettered support. Thank you, dear friends, and we’ll see you next year in Jerusalem.”