Netanyahu: Trump’s Gaza plan ‘could change history’

US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak during a news conference in the East Room of the White House, February 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak during a news conference in the East Room of the White House, February 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Prime Minister Netanyahu is asked whether he sees US President Donald Trump’s plan for a US takeover of Gaza as “a way to expand the boundaries of Israel.”

Netanyahu says one of his war goals is to ensure that Gaza never poses a threat to Israel again.

But “President Trump is taking it to a much higher level,” he says. “He sees a different future for that piece of land that has been the focus of such much terrorism, so many attacks against us… He has a different idea.”

“I think it’s worth paying attention to this,” Netanyahu goes on. “We’re talking about it. He’s exploring it with his people, with his staff. I think it’s something that could change history, and it’s worthwhile really pursuing this avenue.”

He notes that during the current “temporary ceasefire,” one Hamas leader said the terror group intends “to do October 7 again, except we’ll do it bigger.”

Netanyahu says there can’t be peace in the region if the “toxic, murderous” Hamas is left standing, any more than you could make peace in Europe after World War II if the Nazi regime and army were left standing. “You want a different future? You gotta knock out the people who want to destroy you and destroy peace. That’s what we’re going to do,” he says.

This, in turn, will “usher in the peace with Saudi Arabia and with others.”

On Iran, he endorses Trump’s declaration that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon: “We fully agree with that. If this goal can be achieved by a maximum pressure campaign, so be it.”

The most important thing “is to focus on the goal, which the president just did.”

Trump weighs in at this point, saying of Netanyahu: “He doesn’t want to do what some people think will automatically happen, because [the Iranian regime] are very difficult people to deal with, as you know. If we could solve this problem without warfare, without all of the things that you’ve been witnessing over the last number of years, I think it would be a tremendous thing.”

Asked whether he’d back an Israeli strike on Iran, Trump responds, “We’ll have to see what happens.”

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