Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sat down for a wide-ranging interview with TIME on August 4 at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem.
Over the course of the interview, Netanyahu discussed the possibility of all-out war with Iran and Hezbollah, his handling of Israel’s war against Hamas, the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, the prospects for an Israeli-Saudi normalization deal, the U.S.-Israel relationship, and the future of Israel and the Middle East.
Below is a transcript, lightly edited for clarity, of the interview between Netanyahu and TIME Correspondent Eric Cortellessa.
Thank you. I appreciate your doing this. Looking forward to having this conversation about Israel’s war against Hamas, broader regional threats, and the future of the world’s only Jewish state. I want to start with the news. As we speak, the IDF is on high alert for awaiting an Iranian attack. Can Israel simultaneously defend itself against Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran?
Yes.
If Iran directly attacks Israel and launches a war against it, would you ask for the United States to come to your defense?
I always appreciate American support, and uh, I’d appreciate it in every case. It’s already been demonstrated in the April 14th attack. But I’m not going to get into our defensive preparations, or, for that matter, our offensive preparations. We’ll do what we need to do to defend ourselves.
Do you think the Biden administration is sending a strong enough force posture against Iran to deter it from attacking Israel or launching an all-out war against it?
The less daylight there is between Israel and America, the more effective the deterrence on Iran and its proxies. I appreciate the fact that President Biden sent battle groups, carrier groups here at the first part of the war. I appreciate the fact that he’s doing it now.
In recent years, Iran has gotten closer to a nuclear weapon. As you know, it’s now enriching uranium up to 60% purity, according to the IAEA, which suspects it could develop two nuclear weapons if the uranium is enriched further. What steps is Israel taking to stop this?
Well, we’ve been taking steps, I think the actions we took over the years have delayed Iran’s enrichment, but it didn’t stop it, and they’re now close to being a threshold state, a nuclear state, when it comes to enrichment. There are other components of, other elements of making a nuclear weapon that they’re still further away from. But I’ve committed—I’ve said it again and again—we’ll do whatever we’re able to do to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. It would not only threaten us with destruction, I think it would threaten the peace of the entire world.
Is full-on war with Hezbollah inevitable?
Well, I think that Hezbollah has to consider the consequences of attacking Israel and uh, opening a wider war with it. I think if they’re contemplating it, they should think twice.
If you don’t deal with them now, are you worried that you could repeat a mistake with Hamas, where they gain even more in strength and capabilities and then catch you off guard years later?
It’s very much on our minds, especially after October 7th. We’re facing not merely Hamas. We’re facing the broader Iran terror axis that includes Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah, the militias in uh, the Shiite militias in uh, Syria and Iraq and also the efforts that they’re trying to do to create another front in uh, the West Bank, in Judea and Samaria. So we’re facing a full-fledged Iranian axis, and we understand that we have to uh, to organize ourselves for a broader defense, which affects not only us but every country in the region, including our Arab uh, partners.
So if it doesn’t happen now, do you think it will happen later?
Nothing is predetermined. I think the stronger you are, the stronger your alliances are, the less likely you’ll have to take military action, but in order to—but the Romans were right, you know, if you want peace, prepare for war.
When will people in the north be able to return home?
I can’t quite say, to put a date on it, but that’s a goal. One of our main goals is to make sure that the 60,000 or so Israelis who have been who have evacuated their homes can come back and live in their communities in peace and security. That’s still the goal that we have to achieve.
In retrospect, do you think it was the right decision to evacuate those communities in the north?
I think at the time, we were concerned that what we had in Gaza, that is a ground invasion and massacres, would be replicated in the north. And uh, I think that right now, our concern is how to make sure that they can come back with security.
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I want to transition to the world before October 7, and I want to give you a chance to respond. Why did you and your government allow the Qataris to bankroll Hamas?
Well, it’s not only my government. It’s the previous government, the government before me, and the government after me. It wasn’t bankrolling Hamas. It was, in fact, supporting the civilian administration that was run by various officials, many of them non-Hamas. But the reason that successive governments agreed to that is that we wanted to make sure that Gaza has a functioning civilian administration to avoid humanitarian collapse. For example, having money to run the sewage, to the water supply, the education system, you name it. I mean the whole thing would have, could have collapsed, and we could have epidemics. We could have many other problems that we wanted to make sure that we avoid.
I want to read something that you said—
But I’ll add to that. That didn’t prevent me from conducting three full-fledged military campaigns against Hamas in which we killed thousands of terrorists, eliminated some of their top military leadership and sought to prevent them from having the capacity to attack us. One thing we didn’t do was we didn’t come out to eradicate Hamas completely, because that would require a full-scale ground invasion for which we had no internal legitimacy or international legitimacy. Look at the problem we have with legitimacy now, after they conducted the worst terror onslaught on the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
Well I want to come back to that in a second, but I also want to ask you about something you said in 2019 at a Likud Party meeting. I want to read it for you. “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy—to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza.”
That’s a false statement. I never said that.
You never said that?
Never said that. Among the many mis-quotes that are attributed to me. This doesn’t quite top the list, but it’s close.
Others in your government I’ve talked to have said you wanted to give Hamas something to lose so that they didn’t want to attack Israel.
No, it just didn’t have the capacity. I never had any illusions about Hamas. When I resigned from Sharon’s government before he left Gaza, I said, “What will happen is that you’re going to get Hamistan. You’re going to get an Iranian backed terror state right at the outskirts of Tel Aviv.” In 2014 I called Hamas “Daesh and ISIS,” and I said, what we have to do is constantly cut back and destroy their military capacities. But we didn’t go to the—we sort of cut the weeds, but we didn’t come in to uproot them completely until October 7th. October 7th showed that those who said that Hamas was deterred were wrong. If anything, I didn’t challenge enough the assumption that was common to all the security agencies.
Looking back, was it a mistake to allow the Qataris to transfer money into Gaza?
I don’t think it made that big a difference, because the main issue was the transfer of weapons and ammunition from the Sinai into Gaza. That’s what made them—it wasn’t so much a question of money. It was a question of availability, and that’s why I insist now on cutting off this supply route for the, uh, in the post-Hamas period, so you don’t have to resupply the resurgence of terror.
Why didn’t you take out Hamas earlier? You could have gone all the way in 2014.
No I couldn’t. I don’t think there was—there wasn’t a consensus. There was, in fact, a consensus among the military that we shouldn’t do it. But more importantly, you can overrule the military, but you can’t, you can’t act in a vacuum. There was no public, no domestic support for such, for such an action. There was certainly no international support for such an action, and you need both in order to—or at least one of them in order to take such an action. I think that became evident right after the October 7th massacre.
Israel’s military and intelligence services warned that your judicial overhaul was dividing Israel, and that Hezbollah and Hamas saw it as weakening Israel’s deterrence. Why didn’t you listen to them?
They actually made a point to say that that’s not the case in Gaza. They said that it might affect the community overall, other parts of the Middle East, but they were quite specific that it didn’t, didn’t affect Gaza. But the more important thing is, I think that what really affected them, if anything, was the idea of someone refusing to serve. The refusal to serve because of an internal political debate. I think that, if anything, that had an effect, as it turned out, and I said this before the October 7, make no mistake, when the moment comes, we’ll all be there, all factions, all factions in a domestic dispute would unite to fight as one against an attack.
Do you think that they saw this as an opening, the fact that your society was so ruptured and divided?
I don’t think that was the key determinant. They’re determined to wipe us off the map anyway. It’s been Hamas’s position throughout, and the plans for this attack actually preceded the judicial reform by, let me check that, but I think it’s about a year.
President Trump told me you’ve been “rightfully criticized” for October 7th. Is he wrong?
I won’t get into an argument, but I would say that—criticized for what?
That it happened on your watch.
Well, you know, when it happens on your watch, I suspect that I felt the same thing that President Roosevelt felt after Pearl Harbor, and President George W. Bush felt after 9/11. It happens on your watch. You try to see how it could it have been prevented. But right now my responsibility is what? To win the war, to make sure it doesn’t happen again, to destroy Hamas’s military capabilities so it doesn’t happen.
Did you discuss this with Trump at all at Mar-a-Lago?
No, but I won’t get into our discussions.
The heads of the IDF and the Shin Bet apologized for October 7. When you apologized, it was for a social media post blaming the military and security establishment. Why have you not apologized to the Israeli people for October 7?
I’ve said that following the end of the war, there’ll be an independent commission that will examine everything that happened before, and everybody will have to answer some tough questions, including me.
Will you do it right now? Will you apologize?
I don’t think we can do it right now in the middle of a war. Apologize? Of course, of course. I am sorry, deeply, that something like this happened. And you always look back and you say, could we have done things that would have prevented it? You’d have to be—how could you not?
Sure, but what is your accountability for it?
I think we’ll examine all that, that question, and examine it in detail, exactly what happened? How did it happen? How did this failure of intelligence, operational capability and other policies that contributed? There’ll be enough time to deal with it. But I think that dealing with it now is a mistake. We’re in the midst of a war, a seven-front war. I think we have to concentrate on one thing: winning.
After the assassinations of Shukr in Beirut and Haniyeh in Tehran, do you think there’s still a chance for a hostage release deal?
Yes, I think that. I think they’ve actually been increased because some of the—because I think that some of the more extreme elements that oppose the deal are no longer with us.
I know that Israel has not claimed responsibility for the Haniyeh assassination, but President Biden says that killing Haniyeh was “not helpful” for ceasefire talks. How do you respond?
I’ve said that we’re not going to comment on that, and I haven’t changed my views.
The U.S. assessment is that it was Israel.
As I said, no comment.
U.S. officials and the hostage families fear that you’re escalating tensions in the region to sabotage the ceasefire deal. What do you say to that?
That’s not true. We’re faced with a noose of death that Iran is trying to place around our neck, and I think the message we’re sending, 360 degrees, is that we’re not going to be lambs led to the slaughter. Israel is not, is not a sacrificial lamb for the Iranians or for their proxies.
There are more than 100 hostages still held in captivity. How many do you believe are still alive?
Well, not all of them unfortunately.
Do you have any basis to believe a certain number?
I’m just not going to do that.
You have vowed total victory against Hamas, which, above everything else, means ending its rule of the Gaza Strip. Is removing Hamas from power a higher priority than returning the hostages?
I think they’re actually complementary goals. They’re not mutually exclusive. The more military pressure we apply, the more we get closer to achieving both goals. One, releasing hostages. It’s pure—it’s totally a function of the pressure we put on Hamas, and secondly, it advances our goal to destroy Hamas’ military capabilities and make sure that it doesn’t run Gaza.
Are you willing to accept a deal that would release all of the hostages, but that wouldn’t end Hamas’s control of the Gaza Strip?
No, I don’t think that. And I think there’s a vast consensus in Israel that if we did that, we’ll just have a repetition. There’ll be future hostage taking, there’ll be a future October 7, and actually worse things that could happen. So we have to achieve both goals, achieve the release of all the hostages and win the war. And I believe it’s possible. By the way, we’ve already released, we’ve already achieved the release of more than half, as you know, and insisted, when the deal came forward that we increased the number, actually by 30. We went from 50 to 80 on that particular release and had others released as well in rescue operations. But I’m committed, fully committed, to releasing all the hostages. And in fact, I think that the way that we’re going about it is the only way that we’ll achieve that goal.
Your own security chiefs in recent days have said that your demands, including for Israel to be able to resume fighting after a ceasefire hostage deal, are crippling chances of the deal. How do you respond?
Well, I’m not going to get into what they’re exactly saying. They’re not saying that, and some of the security chiefs are saying I’m flipping. But ah, ultimately, this is a country with an army, not an army with a country. Ultimately, the responsibility of making the decision is with the political echelons of the political leaders. That’s the way it works in a democracy. And sometimes you agree, sometimes you disagree. Most of the time, by the way we make decisions and with consensus, but not all the time. That applies to the United States as well. I mean, remember that I think that most of the security chiefs and the military chiefs said to President Obama that he shouldn’t take out bin Laden and he decided otherwise. That happens here on occasion.
But I’ll say this, that I believe the way that I’m seeking to to, to ah, achieve this deal is a way that will maximize the number of hostages that are released in the first phase, living hostages that are released in the first phase, but also that would make sure that Hamas cannot take over Gaza after the deal. That is something that would run against everything that we were talking about. It also would not secure the release of all the hostages. And I’m committed to doing that.
A lot of Americans want you to end the war. Can you explain to them why it is so imperative, in your view, that the consequence of October 7 is that Hamas loses Gaza?
I want to end the war. I’d end the war tomorrow, if I could. And by the way, if Hamas laid down its arms, surrendered, went into exile, the war would be over immediately. And why do we need that? Because Hamas, the Hamas enclave, the Iranian terrorist enclave, is 40 miles from Tel Aviv, okay? To leave them in place not only means that they would have the ability to repeat the savagery of October 7, but go well beyond that. When they act in unison with the Iran terror axis, with Hezbollah in the north, with the Houthis and others who are firing at us simultaneously, that’s something that is unacceptable.
Can Israel restore its deterrence without achieving that outcome?
No, I think that—I think it’s important to achieve it, not only because we eliminate that front so close to the center of our country and to, to our—all the strategic facilities that we have, but also to send a message to the other elements of the Iran terror axis: You know, if you do this horrible savagery, the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, we’ll take powerful action against you, and you will not be around to try to repeat it.
Mr. Prime Minister, obviously, we should have no illusions about the enemy you face and the tactics they use. Hamas deliberately embeds its military infrastructure and weapons depots inside densely populated civilian areas. And of course, this all started on October 7. But in your estimation, how many Gazans have been killed in this war, and how many were civilians versus combatants?
Our best assessment is about a one-to-one ratio, but it’s been going down naturally. One-to-one ratio in probably the most difficult urban warfare conditions is an amazing achievement for the Israeli government. Any civilian casualty, I’ve said, and I’ll say it again, is a tragedy.
How many have there been?
Well, if it’s about half. So we’re talking about what 15,000, more.
The number is 40 [40,000] right now so you’re saying 20 [20,000]?
It’s hard to say the exact number of civilian casualties or military casualties, but it’s about—40 is everybody. It’s about half and half. Our best assessment is one-to-one. But interestingly enough, that number has been coming down, coming down precipitously, and the place where the civilian casualties have been lowest is in Rafah. We were told by the international community and by the United States, don’t go into Rafah because you’ll have thousands. In fact, some people said 20,000 casualties, because there were 1.4 million people in Gaza and where would they go? Well, it turns out they all went. They all left to the humanitarian zone we designated two miles from Rafah, and the number of civilians killed in, the number of terrorists we killed in, that were killed in Rafah, exceeds now 1,500. The number of civilians killed is a few dozen, most of them in a by a small diameter bomb that hit a Hamas weapons depot that killed, they say, around 40 people in Rafah, probably half of them terrorists. So the number of civilian casualties in Rafah there was supposed to be this humanitarian and civilian casualty catastrophe has turned out to be exactly the opposite, because we take action, because we tell the people to leave, because we tell them, we text message them, we send leaflets, we phone them, we tell them to leave, and they did leave, and I’m glad to see that number coming down.
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Do you agree, though, that—
By the way, we’d have nothing. None of them would come down if it wasn’t for—none of them would be actually, because you practically had no significant casualties in Gaza, if you had a condition that doesn’t exist in Gaza but exists in all other urban warfare theaters where the numbers are actually higher, and that is because Gaza is locked, because the people cannot go into the Sinai. If they could, then they’d leave, completely, the war theater and Israel would not have to take the action that it takes. This is what happened in Syria. This is what happened in Iraq. This is what happened in Yemen. People leave. In Gaza, they can’t leave, and we’re faced with the tremendous task of making sure that we relocate them within a very narrow space. But we’ve done that, and I’m glad to see that we’ve succeeded. As we go along, we succeed better and better on this—in Rafah, almost 100%.
But do you agree that by any estimation, this war has brought a tragic cost in human lives?
Of course. Look, anytime you have civilians killed, you have—you see. Look, I know the horrors of losing people. I know the horrors. War is hell. I think Sherman said it, and I’ll tell you, it really is hell. When you lose your own soldiers, when you lose your own people, and when you see civilians killed on the other side, it’s something you want to avoid. And I’ve been taking, and Israel has been taking, unusual methods that no military has taken in history to avoid those casualties. That’s why the ratio is relatively low. Ratio is a number, obviously. To any civilian killed, to any family of a civilian killed, the statistics don’t count, but looking at it in broad terms and historical terms Israel has done here under impossible conditions, impossible conditions, I think, an exemplary effort of avoiding civilian casualties or minimizing them.
Dennis Ross said after October 7 that you needed to create humanitarian corridors at the very beginning of the conflict to prevent civilian casualties. Why didn’t you?
We did. That’s completely contrary to the fact. Of course we did. We created humanitarian zones and safe zones right away and people moved there.
There have been multiple reports of Palestinian civilians who died because they couldn’t get access to medical care. Why didn’t you set up field hospitals for Gazans the way you did for Ukrainians and Syrians?
First of all, we did. I mean, we asked others to do it because we weren’t in the safe zones. We wanted them to go to the safe zone. But we enabled the Emiratis to create the field hospitals. We enabled others to do the same, and they were working hospitals. The problem is that a lot of the Palestinian hospitals in Gaza weren’t hospitals at all. They became command posts for Hamas. We went into these hospitals. You barely found patients. You found terrorists. You found weapons depots. You found communication centers, military communication centers. You found tunnels leading in and out of the hospitals. That’s one of the problems we had to contend with.
Israel reportedly used AI systems called Lavender and Where’s Daddy? to identify Hamas targets and bomb them in their homes. Is that true?
I’m not going to get into our intelligence gathering capabilities.
Senior Israeli officials confirmed the program to multiple reports. Are they lying?
They may have, I don’t.
More than 2 million people in Gaza face food insecurity. The U.N. has warned of a famine in Gaza, and more than 30 children have reportedly died of malnutrition. The U.N. says you are using starvation as a weapon of war. How do you respond?
That’s not true. We’ve gone out of our way to enable humanitarian assistance since the beginning of the war, we enabled some 40,000 aid trucks to come in. That’s 500, half a million tons of food, okay, half a million tons. We paved roads to enable those trucks to go in. We opened land crossings to enable those trucks to go in. We allowed airdrops. We allowed sea transport. And in fact, the calorie count right now, the average calories that every man, woman, and child in Gaza could reach, could have, is about, is over 3,000 calories, which is well, well beyond subsistence levels. We take hundreds, thousands of prisoners, thousands of prisoners, Palestinian prisoners. The first thing we do is to make sure that they don’t have suicide belts, suicide vests on. So we ask them to take their shirts off. Find me one example, one, of an emaciated person, you won’t find even one. Sometimes you find the opposite. That’s simply not true. So these reports are not reliable. The markets in Jabalia, in other parts of Gaza, are full of food and so on. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t stoppages in food. There were, but it’s not because Israel didn’t enable the supply. It’s not because Israel blocked the supply of food, but because Hamas stole it. That’s the problem.
Well, on that note, Hamas loots the aid. Everyone knows that. But you’re not using the IDF to secure distribution of the aid. You’ve got your forces in Gaza. You could prevent looting. Why aren’t you doing that?
That is a very important debate that is happening within our own quarters. Because the way you could do it is actually to put in a lot more military force, actually occupy Gaza and run Gaza. And we’d like to avoid that. We’d like to have, to take out Hamas’s military, but have a civilian administration, a civilian Gazan administration run this. So far. And we’re working on how to do it. The less I speak about how we’re going to do it, the more likely—
So it’s possible you will start using—
It’s not a possibility. It’s a goal.
You’re going to try to do it at some point soon?
We’re working on it.
Do you have a goal in terms of a timeline?
The sooner the better but one of the things we try to do is recruit local Gazans to do exactly what you said, to distribute the food. And the first thing that happened is Hamas murdered them. So we’re working on other possibilities. But again, the less I talk about it, the more likely that it will materialize.
Why have none of the Israelis who destroyed food supplies for Gazans been prosecuted?
They have. I don’t know. I don’t know that they’re not prosecuted. My instructions were, and the cabinet’s instructions were, to take all the actions, the legal actions that are required, the law enforcement action to stop these people from blocking the roads. And they tried. They did, but I think we generally put a stop to that.
The groups that have done this are still eligible for tax-deductible donations. Would you get rid of that for them?
I have no idea who’s doing what. I’ve asked the police, the law enforcement agencies, to do what they need to do to prevent this. And they are. In fact, I think most of it has stopped.
As Prime Minister and as head of the war cabinet, do you accept responsibility for the treatment of Palestinian prisoners?
Yeah, of course. We think this is—we’re a country of laws. You have to obey the laws, the laws of war. It means that if there are any transgressions, they have to be investigated, if necessary, prosecuted. It’s not a question.
Sir there have been reports by the U.N. and other watchdogs that Israeli military forces have abused Palestinian prisoners, including through sleep deprivation, waterboarding, dog attacks, even sexual assault. What are you doing about this alleged abuse?
We have our own independent agencies, our own independent means to monitor any, any transgressions of this kind. Israel, I think, is famous for that. It has what is called a proper judicial system, both inside the military and outside the military. In fact, it’s about, it probably has the most independent legal system on the planet, so the argument that we’re not investigating this is ridiculous.
Well, speaking of those who are being investigated, I want to ask you about what happened at Sde Teiman. After a Palestinian detainee was rushed to the hospital with severe wounds to his anus after being sexually assaulted with a pole, far-right protesters, including some lawmakers, stormed a detention center to protest the arrest of nine alleged suspects. How will they be held accountable?
Nobody can storm into a military base, nobody can interfere, should interfere, with the law enforcement agencies. That’s a critical position that I’ve held, and I don’t care if it comes from the right or from the left. In fact, one of the things that I think we need to do is to make sure that law enforcement is uniform and tough, and it hasn’t always been, but it should be.
When you condemned this riot, you said we don’t storm detention centers, and you said we also don’t block roads, referring to the hostage protesters and the judicial reform protesters. Why would you equate those two?
I also said that there was a case where protesters, where a leading protester, was taken into a military police station and then into a court, and thousands stormed the police station, and I believe the court as well. And actually it was released under that kind of pressure. That was wrong then, they may have set an example of somebody else that was wrong, and this is wrong. I don’t accept either one.
Has Ben Gvir created an atmosphere of permissive violence against Palestinian prisoners? Should he resign or be fired?
I don’t believe that we should allow any of that to happen. That’s not the policy of the government, and I don’t think that anybody seriously believes that we won’t enforce the laws. We do enforce them. We did in this case, we did. We should in all cases.
What do you say to your detractors who argue that your prosecution of the war in Gaza is creating a new generation of terrorists and thereby jeopardizing Israel’s security instead of ensuring it?
I think this is absurd. We have a terrorist enclave, an Iranian backed terrorist enclave committed to the destruction of Israel. The more they believe that they can achieve it, that’s how you’re going to get more terrorism um in the future. The only way that you destroy these people, who as I say committed the worst outrage against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, is to make sure that they’re defeated. It’s like, would you say that the allies’ action against Nazis created more Nazis? Of course not. You had to destroy that regime. Doesn’t mean that there aren’t neo-Nazis today in Germany, but for the last 80 years, Germany has not had a Nazi regime and has had a democratic regime. I don’t know if we can achieve a democratic regime in Gaza, but we have to make sure that this Hamas and their ilk do not run Gaza, and that’s the only thing that will create hope for a new generation of Palestinians, as long as they believe that Gaza is going to be run by Hamas, you’re not going to get a new generation of people that can live in peace with Israel.
I want to shift to your vision for a post-war Gaza. You’ve described total victory as achieving three things: Number one, destroying Hamas’s military infrastructure and removing it from power. Number two, liberating the hostages. Number three, installing a new civilian Palestinian governing entity that can rule over Gaza and not threaten Israel. The Israeli military has a plan for number one. Everybody knows the basic outlines for number two, but what is your plan for number three?
Well, it involves two basic things, demilitarization and de-radicalization. Demilitarization means that you have to make sure that Hamas is destroyed, but also cannot recover itself. And that means, first of all, preventing the smuggling of weapons and terrorists from the Sinai into Gaza. That’s why I insist on control, continued control of the Philadelphi corridor between Egypt, between the Sinai and Gaza. But it also means that for the foreseeable future, until another force emerges, Israel will have to have the job of actually, the overriding security responsibility of taking action against any attempt at terrorist resurgence. Second thing is, I’d like to see a civilian administration run by Gazans, perhaps with the support of regional partners, that runs the civilian administration in Gaza. Demilitarization by Israel, civilian administration by Gaza.
Tell us the details.
And of course, also changing what is taught in schools, what is taught in the mosque. This is essentially what the United States did in the post-war period in Germany and Japan. It did demilitarization and it did de-radicalization, and those countries have been in peace with the United States for close to a century now.
To an outside observer, that sounds like something that would take a generation to achieve. Could you provide specific details of a plan that the Israeli people, the Americans, and the rest of the world can view as a credible way to get there?
I don’t think it’s instantaneous. I think it will take some time to do, but I think that’s the only reasonable thing to try to do, unless you want a repetition of what happened.
How long do you think it will take?
I think we should start as soon as we can. And that’s what we’re working on right now.
What Arab countries are you talking to about the creation of such a Palestinian government?
The less I talk about it, the more likely that we’ll have some success.
Well, reportedly, you’re talking to Egypt, the UAE and Jordan. Is that right?
You’re a reporter. You’re free to ask anyone you want.
I mean, are these nations really going to want to come in riding on the backs of Israeli tanks?
I’ll say this, look, I think that everybody understands, even though they don’t say it publicly, that the defeat of Hamas not only serves Israel’s purpose, it serves also the interests of peace and security in the entire region, whether they openly admit it or not. They certainly told that to us in private conversations.
In the past, you had talked about “state minus” for Palestinians, or “autonomy plus.” But can you explain why the end point to resolving this conflict is not a Palestinian state?
I’ve always said that my vision for an arrangement, a long-term arrangement, with the Palestinians would mean that they should have all the powers to govern themselves but none of the powers to threaten us. That means that the overriding security responsibility will be left in Israel’s hands, and that’s a detraction of sovereign powers. There’s no question about it. That’s the only reasonable arrangement that we could have. In fact, when we left areas adjacent to Israel and relinquished our, that power, we had an immediate entry and takeover by Iran’s proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon, when we left Lebanon, Hamas when we left Gaza. So I don’t think we should repeat that mistake. We have to have the capacity to ensure overall security by Israel. That means that any arrangement with the Palestinians would have those powers that they need to govern themselves, but not the powers that could threaten us. Chief of them—security.
But even if you maintain security control, the U.S. has bases in South Korea, in Japan, in Germany. They’ve got a presence everywhere. I mean, could you not maintain some level of security, or the security control you need, even though it’s less sovereignty than other countries, and allow them to have a state of their own?
Well, I don’t get into the labels. I get into the content, and the content is again, the critical powers that relate to security must rely, must rest in Israel’s hands, until you prove to me that there’s another force that could take over, and I don’t see that in the immediate future, although if you did show me that, I would consider it.
President Biden told TIME last spring that people should have “every reason to believe” that you are prolonging the war for your own political self preservation. How do you respond?
That’s simply not true. I don’t need to. I’m not concerned with my political preservation. I’m concerned with my country’s preservation, and right now, I’m not prolonging it. I would end it as quickly as possible. In fact, the more assistance we have, the faster we will solve it. That’s what I said in Congress. I paraphrased Churchill. He said, “Give us the tools and we’ll do the job and we’ll finish the job.” I said, “Give us the tools faster and we’ll finish the job faster.” And that remains my position.
Your critics here in Israel and abroad say you don’t want to end the war because you will be voted out and then have to face possible sentencing for charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust. I know the trial has been ongoing as Prime Minister, but how do you respond to those charges?
Well, firstly, that. I mean, there’s no—there’s this canard, this narrative that I’m prolonging the war is false. I’m trying to bring the war to as speedy an end as possible. Second, my trial is proceeding in Israel. The political leaders have no immunity from prosecution or legal procedures. In fact, my trial has been going on for three years. It’s totally independent of what is happening on the outside, just because Israel has an independent judiciary. It’s not subject to the whims of any political leader. And by the way, that trial is unraveling now. You don’t hear about it very much, but it’s really unraveling. So this is totally not the issue. It’s a bogus issue. I’m surprised sometimes when senior journalists, not like yourself, actually write op-eds in the world’s leading papers explaining that I’m trying to prolong the war to prevent my going on trial.
I can’t imagine who you’re referring to.
Hello! I’ve been on trial for the last three years!
Before October 7, you were on the cusp of a Saudi normalization agreement. I know it’s not over. But Ghazi Hamad of Hamas, I talked to him last fall, said that Hamas attacked Israel with the goal of not only trying to stop the deal, but to trigger an Israeli response that would turn the world against you. Take what he says with a grain of salt. But to that end, haven’t they succeeded?
No, I think that they won’t succeed, because once we win, I think things will fall in place, and actually, the Saudi deal will become more likely. In any case, I haven’t given up on the deal. I was—
But the world has treated Israel as a global pariah over the last 10 months.
That says something about the world, not about Israel. Here’s a democracy fighting against the worst savagery that we’ve seen on the planet for many decades, and the fact that democratic governments are subjected to internal pressure from fringe groups and do not support Israel completely or are willing to accommodate these extremists should be leveled at them, not at Israel.
Are you worried that this is shaping the perception of Israel for the next generation of not only Americans but everywhere, and that this will have long-term implications for your security?
Yes, but being destroyed has bigger implications about Israel’s security, so I’d rather have bad press than a good obituary.
The Saudis say they want a Palestinian state, or at least they want you to be moving toward one eventually. How is it possible to strike a Saudi normalization deal when you have Ben-Gvir and Smotrich changing the conditions on the ground to rule out a Palestinian state, or even state minus as you’ve called it?
Look, all Israeli governments have been based in parliamentary systems [and] are based on coalitions. Everyone’s done it. Previous governments even made a coalition with a party that is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and rejects the very survival of Israel. I didn’t hear any criticism about that. But one thing I can assure you, I run the show, I make the decisions. I formulate the policy.
So I understand what goes into cobbling together a coalition, and it was hard the last couple of years.
Well you lived here.
And there were a lot of elections in a short period of time. But why did you give Ben-Gvir and Smotrich such positions of power?
Well, I think that’s a natural allocation. That’s what the voters decide. And also some of the parties who could have joined me decided not to join me, some of the other parties. And I was very glad when one of them joined our coalition at the beginning of the war, and I was sorry to see them leave. It’s their decision. So I think you should ask—that’s the way the democratic cookie crumbles.
What other coalition could they have been a part of?
They could have joined my government.
No, I’m talking about Ben-Gvir and Smotrich.
No, I’m saying that the other parties refused. You need a government. You need a majority to govern, okay? When parties who refuse to join the coalition means that Israel is left without a government.
Did you have to put them in those positions?
I won’t get into coalition negotiations. Maybe they wanted an even more influential job. And that’s fine. I mean, that’s okay. But ultimately, I think we decided, I think what, what the people of Israel decided in free, democratic elections.
Smotrich once said that you are, as he said, “with us full on” when it comes to his West Bank annexation plans. Is he wrong?
I don’t know if he said that, but if he said this, it’s not true, because I’ve not sought annexation. I’ve explained that our goal is to achieve a negotiated solution. So far, it hasn’t happened, and I hope it will happen one day, but I can’t see it happening without some substantial change in the Palestinian Authority. They teach their children basically the same thing that Hamas teaches them: that Israel has to be destroyed, it has to be dissolved. They glorify suicide bombers. They pay for slay, the more Jews you kill, more they give the families of these murderers, or the murderers themselves. This doesn’t bode well for peace. But I think that many of our Arab neighbors understand that, except they won’t say it openly.
Will you commit to not going forward on West Bank annexation, right here and now?
That is not where we’re going.
Part of what the U.S. is offering for Saudi-Israel normalization is support for their nuclear industry. Are you worried that Saudi Arabia is heading toward nuclear weapons status and that that will lead to nuclear proliferation in the Middle East?
I think that we’d be concerned with anything that had that possibility. I’m sure the United States is concerned with that too.
I want to talk about the U.S.-Israel relationship. There may be two things that are most essential for securing Israel’s long-term survival. First and foremost, the will and the resilience of the Israeli people. Second, sustained bipartisan support for Israel in Washington. There have been periods of bipartisan fracture over Israeli security in the past, with Eisenhower, George Herbert Walker Bush, Obama, but what worries Israel’s supporters—
President Johnson.
President Johnson, for sure—is the generational change that comes with the passing of a generation that lived through the Holocaust and its aftermath. They worry that a fragmentation of support for Israel in this era and beyond is fundamentally different than it was 20 or 50 years ago. Are you worried about that?
Yes. I still think Israel enjoys the broad support of the broad swath of the American people. And that’s been brought up by one poll after another, but you’re quite right. In the Harvard-Harris poll, 80% of Americans consistently asked, when they ask, Would you support Israel or Hamas? They support Israel, but 20% support Hamas. And when you look at it, that’s not very dissimilar from the 20% who say bin Laden was in the right and America was in the wrong. So something fundamental is going on in America. I don’t think that the much-reported erosion of support among some quarters of the American public is related to Israel. It’s more related to America. What is happening in America itself? America is undergoing significant internal changes. I hope that, and I believe that it will, it will maintain its position as the defender of liberty and the defender of democracy in the world. I fully agree with that, but I don’t think it’s Israel. Israel hasn’t changed its policies. It’s not that. It’s that, in many ways, the United States is undergoing change, and I hope that the bipartisan support, which you’re right is essential for Israel, remains intact.
Well, I mean, Smotrich, at least, under his remit, is approving these unauthorized outposts. He’s streamlining the settlement approval process. He’s changing the bureaucratic process to advance his ideological agenda. Is that not a change in policy?
No, I don’t think so. I think that this is way overblown. It doesn’t fundamentally change the footprint of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank. I mean, just take a photo, you know, take a satellite photo and compare it, and you see that there hasn’t been that change that people are talking about. But we are committed. It’s part of our homeland. We intend to stay there. We’re not going to do ethnic cleansing of Jews anymore than we’re going to do ethnic cleansing of Arabs.
You got 57 standing ovations last week, but nearly 130 Democrats skipped your speech, including Kamala Harris, who’s one of two people who will be the next president. Why should Israelis trust you to maintain bipartisan support for Israel in Washington?
Well, I’m doing everything I can to do it. And I don’t come to Washington as a Republican or as a Democrat. I come as an Israeli. I seek agreement wherever I can, but I also stand up for Israel wherever I must. And I’ve done that not only with Democratic presidents or Democratic administrations. I opposed some of the policies of George H.W. Bush, a Republican. I opposed the policies of George W. Bush on Operation Defensive Shield, when he said Israel has to leave right away. And I came out against that. And I spoke to 50 senators at the time against the policy, which I thought was inimical to Israel’s interest, and by the way, I thought to America’s interest, too. So I do what I can to stand up for Israel when I can. The Israeli prime minister has to be able to say two things. He has to say no when he must and yes when he can. And that’s what I did.
A number of decisions that you made in recent years have alienated Democrats. The perception that you supported Mitt Romney over Obama in 2012, your attempts to prevent the Iran nuclear deal, and your most recent address to Congress against originally the wishes of Joe Biden. Why would you want to risk removing that strut of bipartisan support at a time like this?
I don’t want to risk bipartisan support. I want to, uh, in fact, mobilize it, as I tried to do in the speech, in order to, in this speech and in previous efforts, in order to mobilize bipartisan support, even at the face of a changing electorate for Israel’s vital goals of survival. That’s what I do. And in any case, I don’t intervene. Contrary to reports, I don’t intervene in American politics, and I expect others not to intervene in ours.
American college campuses were overtaken this spring with protests against Israel’s war in Gaza. Polls find that young people sympathize more with the Palestinians. Are you losing the support of the next generation of Americans, including Jews?
Well, I think we have a big job to do. I’m concerned with it. It’s not something that I think is, I don’t—I’m not facile about it. I don’t say, well, it doesn’t concern me. Of course it concerns me. But I think it should concern America too. Because when the young generation supports these murderers, these rapists, these beheaders of women, these burners of babies, then there’s a problem that America has. It’s not a problem that Israel has.
But what are you going to do to repair this? This is a gathering storm.
Try to speak the truth, as I did last week in Congress, and I was glad about the reception that it received. It was very broadly received, by the way, well received across the partisan line, not everyone, but I was very gratified to see the reaction in a very broad audience in America, and by the way, around the world. People heard the truth. It’s hard to [unintelligible] truth because you have the preponderance of hostile elements because of numerical superiority. And in social media and in some instruments of it is, in particular, and it shapes the minds of young people who use that social media. That’s a big problem. We should all be concerned with that, and not just about Israel.
What threatens you most with young people?
Threatens me most with young people?
Not you personally, but Israel.
Well, I think the fact—ignorance. More than anything else, ignorance. The lack of knowledge. Some of these people who are protesting have no idea what they’re protesting. They still don’t believe that Hamas actually committed these outrages.
You recently met with Vice President Harris. Where do you think she stands on Israel and on the current situation in the Middle East?
First of all, I was very glad to have the opportunity to speak with her, as I did with President Biden and with President Trump. She spoke about her support for Israel. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have disagreements. I’ve had disagreements with the American presidents. I have had many agreements with them at the same time.
Why did your office criticize her remarks following the meeting? You may need her in the coming years.
I simply said, and I said this in the meeting with her and with the President, as well, and with President Trump, that the closer Israel, at this crucial time, the closer America, the American and Israeli positions are, the more it achieves a positive result. People always look for daylight. But in times of war, they look through a microscope. And we have a common goal. We want the release of the hostages. We want peace restored. I want it after an Israeli victory, so the more we’re aligned the better we are.
What was the daylight on?
Well, I hope there isn’t any.
Polls show that 72% of Israelis think you should leave office either now or when the war is over. Do you intend to remain Prime Minister when the war is over?
I will stay in office as long as I believe I can help lead Israel to a future of security, enduring security and prosperity. But it doesn’t only depend on me. We’re in a democracy, the decision of who stays in office and who’s not is ultimately dependent on people. I’ve been re-elected six times. I lost twice. That can happen in a democracy.
Should you remain Prime Minister?
Well for the moment, I think that I’m leading the effort that protects the country and assures its path to victory, which I think is getting closer.
If an opposition leader presided over the worst security failure in Israel’s history, would you say they should stay in power?
It depends what they do. What do they do? Are they capable of leading the country in war? Can they lead it to victory? Can they assure that the post-war situation will be one of peace and security? If the answer is yes, they should stay in power. In any case, that’s the decision of the people.
What do you have to do to earn the ability to remain Prime Minister after this?
I don’t care about remaining Prime Minister. I care about preserving the—we’re not talking about my future. We’re talking about the future of the country. I’ve dedicated my adult life, first as a soldier and then as a diplomat and then as a political leader, to assure the survival and security of the State of Israel and its prosperity, by turning, basically liberating its economy. And as long as I feel I can contribute to that, I’ll do it. And as long as the people feel it. This is not—we don’t live in a monarchy. We live in a democracy.
Well, that’s right. And you’ve been Prime Minister for, what, roughly 18 years now?
Not yet but—
Almost, almost there. Almost 18 years. What other other leaders of democratic countries or democratic societies have been in power for that long?
Well they tried.
Do you think it’s good for a democracy to have the same leader in power for 18 years?
I think it depends on the people. They choose, and they decide who really works for them. But it’s not a personal decision. I don’t dictate it any more than people think that I dictate everything that happens, even in the military. Usually, it’s done by consensus for those decisions. But yes, ultimately the responsibility is for the Prime Minister and the cabinet, and it’s the people who decide who will be the Prime Minister and the cabinet. This is, you know, this is not—the people decide that. It’s not. It’s not something that is governed by rules. If you ask me, when is the last time that somebody did that? I think it’s more than half a century ago, I don’t know, in Canada or Australia or something, but politics, you know, it’s not because I exactly have exorbitant powers. I don’t control the press or the judiciary or the other institutions. It’s the people who decide in free democratic elections, and I’m glad Israel has them.
You certainly don’t control the press here in Israel, I know that.
You sure?
Well there are some, there are some.
The picture that is given is that I’m some kind of, you know, I have these fantastic powers that somehow ensure that I govern. In fact, I don’t. The people have the power they decide.
I know we’re coming to the end. I want to get to the last few questions. Former Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, even Ariel Sharon, all said that Israel needed to allow for the establishment of a Palestinian state to preserve the Zionist ideal of remaining a Jewish-majority democracy. Do you agree with that?
Well, I agree we should maintain a Jewish majority, but I think we should do it in democratic means. I also think that the, and I don’t want to—that’s why I don’t want to incorporate the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria as citizens of Israel. I think there’s a potential solution there. And again, I think it means that they should run their own lives. They should vote for their own institutions. They should have their own self-governance. But they should not have the power to threaten us.
And I understand and appreciate that. But can Israel remain a democracy if it continuously, perpetually rules over the millions of Palestinians?
I don’t. We don’t rule their land. We don’t run Ramallah. We don’t run Jenin. But we go in and take action when we have to prevent terrorism. It’s a question of—I think it’s a conceptual trap that people are locked in. They think that the only possibility is complete, unabridged sovereignty. That doesn’t happen in the economic field. Right now, you have countries that are subservient to larger institutions, external institutions, that govern, for example, in the E.U. you have that, okay, you have that. But not only there, you have it in many other places. The idea that the one thing that we should do is forfeit our security by giving absolute sovereignty to the Palestinians in the future without having the ability to prevent the emergence of terror or other security threats from adjacent areas is nonsensical. It doesn’t bode well for peace. It guarantees that you won’t move towards peace. You move towards war, which is what happened time and again, when we left, when we took out the military control from territories adjacent to us. Just think about that. I mean, you come from New Jersey, right?
Well, I lived there at one point.
Close to New York, right? Can you imagine? I said this to one of my interlocutors. Can you imagine that you would enable the establishment of a state committed to the destruction of America across the Washington Bridge? I mean, that’s not going to happen. That’s what people are asking Israel to do. The distances are so tiny, Israel would potentially be so fragile and unable to defend itself. And those who say to us, just give them a state five meters away, not thousands of miles away but a mile away, and relinquish the power to intervene militarily in such a state if it becomes, as it is, hostile to you, it doesn’t make sense.
Don’t you think it’s the duty of a responsible Prime Minister to preserve the conditions for an eventual two-state outcome?
I don’t call it, I don’t label it, but I said before, I don’t wish to govern the Palestinians, but I certainly would not let them threaten the existence of the one and only Jewish state. So there will have to be a division of power.
A lot of Israelis and American Jews worry that Zionism, as I just described it, will not survive this war. What do you say to that?
Well, it will, if we win. And if we don’t, our future will be in great jeopardy. So we have to win, and it requires resolution. It requires looking both at the military actions, but also looking at the larger picture of the Iran axis working discreetly with Arab partners to shape the post-war period, the post-war Middle East, which we’re doing and seeking to maintain, and in fact intensify the support of the United States and other democracies. It doesn’t happen in the heat of war. I can understand that as far as Western public opinion, but when the dust settles, I think people will see that we waged the essential war, not only for our defense, but for the defense of the West and civilization against barbarism.
Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
Thank you.
