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PM Netanyahu at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem met with an AIPAC leadership delegation led by AIPAC President Michael Tuchin

Israel - Prime Minister's Office

The 37th Government
18.03.2024

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to AIPAC Leaders: "If we achieve these goals, then we will also deliver a stinging blow to the Iran terror axis, which is behind everything that we're seeing here today."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today, at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, met with an AIPAC leadership delegation led by AIPAC President Michael Tuchin. The Prime Minister spoke with the delegation, briefed them on the fighting in Gaza, and answered their questions.

Following are excerpts from the Prime Minister's remarks:

"How do we define victory? We define it as the destruction of Hamas's military and governing capabilities, as the return of the hostages, which we're working right now, and also as preventing the return, Gaza from becoming a threat to Israel at any time in the future.

There is also the northern front, where we want to return our people to a condition of security. That requires that Hezbollah move back. That is also part of our goals, which we will not give up on. Very important.

If we achieve these goals, then we will also deliver a stinging blow to the Iran terror axis, which is behind everything that we're seeing here today.

That is something that we all have to understand, that this is not just Israel's battle. It is a battle for our future, but it's also the battle for the victory of the Israel-America-moderate Arab axis against the Iran axis.

Unless we have that victory that I talked about, then we have a defeat. A defeat spells terrible things for our future and for the future of the Middle East and beyond the Middle East. Because this is a war of civilization against barbarism, those who want to bring back the Middle East to the Middle Ages, early Middle Ages, and those who want to see it going to the century of progress and advance in the 21st century. That's really the battle. It's a very, very big battle."

Prime Minister Netanyahu added:

"The picture that is presented in the last few days and weeks in the United States is completely different from what I described. It's not the unity of the people. You can go into any cab, go into a mall, walk down the street and talk to people. The great majority will tell you that they support what I just said, the goals that the government has set.

That's not the description you have an outlier prime minister who put some extreme fringe groups, and that's what's driving the policy. False. I would say deliberately false. They know it's false. But that falsehood is perpetrated and it's wrong.

There is unity among the people to achieve victory along the lines that I described. It is within reach and we're going to do it. I've said this to the president. I've said it to the people that I've talked to. They keep saying that local politics is interfering with this. They may be right. On which side of the pond?

We have to win this war. We have to stand together and win this war. We have to stand together here, and we have to stand together there. Because it's the right thing to do. Because it's the necessary thing to do. Because it's the one thing that will assure the viability, future and security of the State of Israel."