Netanyahu says he spoke with Trump three times since election, they see ‘eye-to-eye on the Iranian threat’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has spoken with US President-elect Donald Trump three times since the US election less than a week ago, and that they see “eye-to-eye” on the Iranian threat.

In a video statement, Netanyahu says the talks “were designed to further tighten the strong alliance between Israel and the US. We see eye-to-eye on the Iranian threat in all its components, and the danger posed by it. We also see the great opportunities before Israel, in the expansion of peace, and in other realms.”

He describes the conversations as “good and very important.”

Addressing the attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam, Netanyahu says that “a clear line connects two antisemitic attacks against Israel that we have recently seen on Dutch soil: the criminal legal attack against Israel at the international court in The Hague, and the criminal violent attack against Israeli citizens on the streets of Amsterdam.”

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar made almost identical remarks earlier today connecting the violence in Amsterdam and the investigations into Israel and its leaders at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.

“In both cases, it is a dangerous antisemitism whose aim is to make the Jews and their country helpless,” he says, “to deny our country the right to self-defense, to deny our citizens the right to life itself.”

“We have learned something from history: the unbridled attacks that begin against the Jews never end with the Jews,” says Netanyahu, adding that he expects every government to act decisively against antisemitism.

“In any case, we will do what needs to be done to protect ourselves and our citizens,” Netanyahu says. “We will never allow the horrors of history to repeat themselves. We will never surrender — neither to antisemitism nor to terrorism.”