Netanyahu: We removed ‘tumors’ of Iran’s nuclear and missile threats, but monitoring needed so they don’t reemerge

WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the “partnership between Israel and the United States — the partnership between President Trump and me — produced a historic victory.”

He says the combination of the US and Israel “produced a decisive result” against Iran.

“It set back the two tumors that were threatening the life of Israel — the nuclear tumor and the ballistic missile tumor,” Netanyahu tells reporters before his dinner with US President Donald Trump at the White House.

“They were planning to build 20,000 of these things and launch it on a country the size of New Jersey. No country can withstand that. So what do you do when you have two things that are going to kill you? You have to remove them with our combined effort [and] we did,” Netanyahu says.

“But when you remove a tumor, that doesn’t mean that it can’t come back. You have to constantly monitor the situation to make sure that there’s no attempt to bring it back,” the premier warns.

Netanyahu says the US and Israeli strikes against Iran “changed the face of the Middle East” and have created an opportunity to expand the Abraham Accords normalization agreements between Israel and its Arab and Muslim neighbors.

“I’d like to believe that Iran would not test our fortitude, because it would be a mistake,” he says.

Asked whether he backs regime change, Netanyahu responds, “It’s up to the people of Iran.”