Benjamin Netanyahu born in Tel Aviv, Israel
Benjamin Netanyahu is born in Tel Aviv, Israel, growing up in Jerusalem then Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, Jewish historian Benzion Netanyahu, works as a professor. His mother is a stay-at-home mother. He goes to Cheltenham High School in Cheltenham, Philadelphia.
You taught me, Father, how to correctly view reality, how to understand what it contains within it and draw the necessary conclusions. It certainly wasn’t an easy thing for you, because there were always those who did not see as you did, ridiculed, laughed at or belittled your conclusions. But I believe that in this, as well, you taught me to distinguish between the important and the unimportant, and concentrate on the important.
Yonatan Netanyahu dies age 30
Yonatan (Yoni) Netanyahu leads a mission to free 105 Jewish hostages being held by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in Entebbe Uganda and is killed in the raid. His body is brought back to Israel for burial at Mt. Herzl. He is survived by his parents, an ex-wife and two younger brothers. Benjamin Netanyahu:
There is no moment that can compare to the intensity of shock and suffering, and we know that the wound never fully heals.
Sign Wye Agreement
Netanyahu and Arafat sign the Wye River Agreement. The agreement is a land-for-peace deal which is signed after a 21-hour discussion between the two parties mediated by US president Bill Clinton. Jordan’s King Hussein, is also in attendance, assisting in the negotiations. Netanyahu:
The agreement benefits both sides and leaves me brimming with some confidence that Israel and the Palestinians could reach a final accord, though I guarantee you it will not be easy.
Netanyahu: Hamas baits Israel into killing civilians
Netanyahu tells Blitzer that Hamas baits Israel into killing civilians in order to create ‘telegenically dead’ victims that they can use to influence public opinion in the 2014 Gaza conflict:
What choice do we have? We have to protect ourselves. So we try to target the rocketeers. We do. And all civilian casualties are unintended by us, but intended by Hamas. They want to pile up as many civilian dead as they can, because somebody said they use – it’s gruesome. They use telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause. They want the more dead the better.
Reoccupation is ‘excessive military plan’
Netanyahu tells Blitzer that reoccupation of the Gaza Strip would be an ‘excessive military plan’ and that nobody in Israel’s government wants to go to that extent, but doesn’t appear to completely rule out the possibility of retaking the territory:
I support taking whatever action is necessary to stop this insane situation…Just imagine – I mean, imagine what Israel is going through. Imagine that 75 percent of the U.S. population is under rocket fire and they have to be in bomb shelters within 60 to 90 seconds. So, I’m not just talking about New York – New York, Washington, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Miami, you name it. That’s impossible. You can’t live like that. So I think we have to bring back, restore back a reasonable, sustained quiet and security. And we will take whatever action is necessary to achieve that.
When Blitzer asks if that includes possibly reoccupying Gaza:
Nobody wants to go to excessive military plans, but what is happening here is excessive.
Netanyahu: ‘We don’t obliterate them’
Netanyahu says that Israel doesn’t ‘obliterate’ Palestinian civilians and has no battle with anyone other than Hamas, but that the brutality results from Hamas’ tendency to place rocket launchers near civilian targets – a tactic which he says is intentional.
People would say in the United States, as they’re telling me, obliterate the people. We don’t obliterate them. We don’t want to – we don’t have any battle with the Palestinians in Gaza.
He adds that having the right to self-defense also means being able to use it:
I appreciate the support we have received from President Obama and many world leaders for Israel’s right to self-defense. But others are saying, yes, you have the right of self-defense, as long as you don’t exercise it. What can a country do? What would you do? What would the people of the United States do if – if your cities were rocketed now, 2,000 rockets falling in American cities?
Netanyahu: ‘Brutal, cynical, heartless enemy’
Netanyahu tells Blitzer that Israel seeks to protect its citizens using its weapons, while Hamas has no interest in protecting civilians and uses its weapons to draw fire onto the Gaza Strip:
We develop anti-missile systems to protect. We use an anti-missile system to protect our civilians. They use their civilians to protect their missiles. That’s the difference. So, against such a cynical, brutal, heartless enemy, we try to minimize civilian casualties.
Netanyahu: Hamas leaders divided into two
Netanyahu tells Blitzer that there are two different groups of Hamas leaders, neither of whom are particularly concerned about the fate of Palestinian civilians. The military wing:
I mean, the Hamas leaders are divided into two. Those who are under – in underground bunkers in Gaza, they don’t care. Let the people there, you know, with the rocketeers and with the attack tunnels, let them die as Israel tries to surgically take them out. But they’re safe underground, the military leaders.
He says Khaled Meshaal, the leader of the political wing, understands even less what the conflict is like for people with no option of leaving Gaza:
And then they have got the political leader, this guy Khaled Meshaal, who is roaming around five-star hotel suites in the Gulf states, having the time of his life, while his people, while he’s deliberately putting his people as fodder for this horrible terrorist war that they’re conducting against us. So this has to stop. And I think many people in Gaza understand that Hamas is destroying Gaza, destroying their lives.
700 tons of concrete in each tunnel
Netanyahu tells Blitzer that Hamas has used tens of thousands of tons of concrete, which could have gone towards building other facilities for the community such as schools, into tunnels to attack Israel instead.
You know what they did with that, Wolf? They put 700 tons of concrete into each one of these terror attack tunnels to penetrate Israel. Now, we have discovered dozens of them. So you’re talking about tens of thousands of tons of concrete, instead of going for the benefit of the school, the population, is going for terrorism against Israel.
Netanyahu: They call for destruction of Israel
Netanyahu tells Blitzer that Hamas and Islamic Jihad call for the destruction of Israel and for the killing of Jews, rather than for legitimate political aims:
I think it – I think the international community has to – once this is put in place, we really have to undertake a program to demilitarize Gaza and to change the situation, because it’s unacceptable. What makes it unacceptable is Hamas and Islamic Jihad. These people are the worst terrorists, genocidal terrorists. They call for the destruction of Israel, and they call for the killing of every Jew wherever they can find them.
Won’t discuss unilateral strike on Iran
Netanyahu says that he won’t comment on the possibility of a strike by Israel on Iran’s alleged nuclear facilities. Blitzer:
Now that the U.S., the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Germany, they have agreed to a four-month extension, allowing these talks with Iran and its nuclear program to continue, does that mean a unilateral Israeli military strike potentially is off the table over the next four months?
Netanyahu:
Now, you know I never talk about – about what Israel will do or not do.
Netanyahu: No Iran deal is better than a bad deal
Netanyahu tells Blitzer that no deal is better than a bad deal on Iran, as the Islamic Republic he considers to be the world’s top terrorist state would seek to bypass efforts to prevent it developing weapons capabilities:
But I think what is important is that there wasn’t a bad deal, because there’s no deal. And no deal is better than a bad deal. We will see what the extension produces. I think a good deal is what was achieved with Syria. They’re under the threat of U.S. military action. And with the joint effort by President Obama and President Putin, Syria removed its chemicals and the capability to make chemical weapons. They didn’t just keep it in place, freeze it, and put it under a lock and put an inspector on it. They actually dismantled and removed.
He warns:
That’s not what Iran is holding out for. Iran wants to keep its capabilities and say, we will put a lock under and you can inspect it. But the whole idea for them is that, at a certain point, they break the lock. The inspector will even say they broke the lock. It will take him a few weeks to put together the wherewithal for a nuclear bomb. That’s a bad deal. Don’t make that deal, because if you think the Middle East is bad now, with ISIS, with Hamas, with Hezbollah, and with Iran, wait until Iran, one of the pre – the preeminent terrorist state of our time, has nuclear weapons.
Wiki information replaced
Wikipedia user TSKAero1 replaces the biographical information on Netanyahu’s Wikipedia page with a Palestinian flag in apparent vandalism related to the 2014 Gaza conflict. Editors revert the article to a previous iteration within about 40 minutes, removing the changes.
https://twitter.com/BhasChat/statuses/491674980191830016
Will destroy tunnels ‘with or without ceasefire’
Netanyahu says that destruction of Hamas tunnels will proceed regardless of the status of a ceasefire agreement. In Tel Aviv ahead of a fourth Knesset meeting to discuss the 2014 Gaza conflict:
We are determined to complete this mission with or without a ceasefire. I won’t agree to any proposal that will not enable the Israeli military to complete this important task for the sake of Israel’s security
‘Never second guess me’
Netanhayu gives an imperative to the Obama administration over the phone with U.S. ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro:
Not to ever second guess me again
He says that he warned the U.S. ahead of time not to trust Hamas to stick to ceasefire conditions, after a three-day truce agreement breaks down within two hours as Hamas militants are said to abduct an Israel Defense Forces soldier on a tunnel operation and the IDF responds with tank shells.
‘Leave Gaza or destroy it’
The brother of an Israel Defense Forces soldier killed in Gaza says Netanyahu must decide whether to leave Gaza and pursue diplomacy, or destroy the territory. Omar Gotlib’s Facebook account:
I ask you to take the children out of Gaza and turn to diplomacy — or just stop being afraid of the world and turn Gaza into rubble. I’m not afraid of the boycott to come. My countrymen are more important than a few opinions in the faraway, distant world
The left-wing Meretz voter, who does not support Netanyahu’s Likud, says Gaza should be taken…
…if not pleasantly, then with full force — without soldiers, only bombs weighing ton upon ton. Just don’t let the erosion and attrition continue. Stop being a politician, and be a leader. Make a decision free of outside interests, just out of concern for the pure souls that are in that accursed place, which rivals the Dead Sea as ‘The Lowest Place in the World.’
Netanyahu: We arrest our extremists
Netanyahu tells Blitzer that the difference between Israel and Hamas is that Israel doesn’t glorify extremists, but puts them in jail. On the suspected killers of Palestinian teenager Mohammad Abu Khdeir in an apparent nationalist attack:
We don’t glorify these killers. We put – we apprehended him in three – three days after the – that tragic killing, immediately put them in custody. We’re putting them on trial. They will serve a good chunk of their lives in jail. That’s what we do with the killers. We don’t name public squares after them. We don’t glorify them.
He says that Hamas begins indoctrinating people with extremism from a young age:
We don’t educate our people, our children in suicide kindergarten camps, as happens in the Palestinian side. And you should see what Hamas is educating them to, no peace, no two-state solution, nothing, just jihad, more and more violence, more and more murder, and more and more bloodshed. This is not our way. We have – I think a society is tested not by the extreme fringes of that society, but how it takes care of them. We take care of those extreme fringes. We basically isolate them and ostracize them and punish them.
Netanyahu: ‘Stop bashing Israel’
US Congressmen Rohrbacher and Meeks visit Israel and speaks with Netanyahu about recent events where UN peacekeepers had confrontations with militant Islamists. The Prime Minister made use of the opportunity to express that the United Nations focuses too much time on bashing Israel rather than focusing attention on radical Islam groups. Netanyahu:
What we see is that al-Nusra, Hamas, Hezbollah — backed by Iran, al-Qaeda and these other terrorists groups are basically defying all international norms, breaking them whether in Lebanon, in Syria or in Gaza. I think the UN would do itself a great favor if, instead of the automatic Israel bashing, they actually turn their attention and their investigative committees against these terrorists who trample every norm on which the UN was founded.
About Israel, Rohrbacher:
…the one force for stability and one force for a long-term peace for this region. The rest of the region is awash in tyranny and injustice and gangsterism and terrorism that’s coming from the top, from these people that are running the various organizations, radical Islamic organizations.
Addresses Islamic terror at UN
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, speaks at the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York, addressing the Islamic terror threat. The half hour speech compares ISIS, Iran and Hamas as a whole in regards to Islamic militancy being a threat to democracy and the world. Netanyahu:
Last week, many countries here rightly applauded President Obama for leading the effort to confront ISIS. And yet weeks before, some of these same countries, that now support confronting ISIS, opposed Israel for confronting Hamas. They evidently don’t understand that ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree. ISIS and Hamas share a fanatical creed, which they both seek to impose well beyond the territory under their control. Don’t be fooled by Iran’s manipulative charm offensive. It’s designed for one purpose and for one purpose only: to lift the sanctions and remove the obstacles to Iran’s path to the bomb.
Obama reacts to Netanyahu’s statement
President Obama states he will re-evaluate the relationship the U.S. has with Israel in light of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statement that he will never allow a two-state solution. Press Secretary:
The United States will re-evaluate our approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It has been the longstanding policy of the United States that a two-state solution is the best way to address this conflict. The president still holds that view. [Netanyahu’s statement] undermines the values of democratic ideals that have been important to our democracy and an important part of what binds the United States and Israel together.