Netanyahu says Israel’s Iran strike destroyed ‘industrial factories of death,’ vows to prevent Iran nukes, plans further Arab peace deals
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
Israel hit key Iranian sites hard during its airstrikes on Saturday, says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a fiery address at the opening of the Knesset winter legislative session.
“We severely damaged Iran’s defense systems and its ability to export missiles,” says Netanyahu. “These were not lathes we were attacking. These are industrial factories of death and we struck them hard.”
Netanyahu obliquely pushes back on reports that the White House convinced him to scale back Israel’s response to Iran’s October 1 ballistic missile attack, emphasizing that “we make decisions ourselves according to our interests and considerations.”
The prime minister says Israel’s strategy against Iran and its proxies is clear: “Our long-term strategy is to dismantle the axis of evil, to cut off its arms in the south and in the north, to exact a heavy price from Iran and its proxies and to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons.”
Turning to the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon, Netanyahu says that the “day after” the war, “Hamas will no longer rule Gaza and Hezbollah will not sit on our northern border.”
He also pledges that he will continue making peace with Arab countries, without mentioning Saudi Arabia by name.
Netanyahu promises to bring all the hostages home, and to achieve the war aims he laid out at the beginning of the war. “Total victory is an orderly and consistent work plan that we fulfill step by step,” he insists.
Israel, he says, is the one obstacle keeping Iran from controlling the Middle East and threatening the rest of the world. “The fanatical axis of evil led by Iran threatens to destroy our country and trap other countries in its net, and to threaten the West first of all. Iran is working for a stockpile of nuclear bombs and will be able to threaten the entire world whenever it wants.”
According to Iran’s thinking, he argues, “if Israel falls, the entire Middle East will fall into its hands, but we will not fall. We will win and the whole world will be a better place.”
Netanyahu does not mention the contentious issue of the ongoing exemption from military service of most ultra-Orthodox men.
Knesset security removes a protester yelling from the gallery during Netanyahu’s speech.