Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked the media during a government meeting, accusing most outlets of acting as a political party. “Most media channels are a political party. They receive the opposition’s talking points and sometimes even generate them,” Netanyahu said.
During his remarks, the Prime Minister made it clear that, from his perspective, there is no room for the reconstruction of the Strip without a fundamental change in the security reality: “There will be no reconstruction of Gaza without the dismantling and demilitarization of the designated area.”
Netanyahu emphasized that “the Gazans should have freedom of choice: Those who want to leave should be able to do so. Those who stay cannot threaten us,” adding that the results of the war are already visible on the ground: “We know that the threat from Gaza has been removed because there is enormous demand in the Gaza envelope. This comes as a result of there being a new Gaza envelope – within Gaza.”
The prime minister later went on a political attack, saying that even those who present themselves as right-wing are not really right-wing: “When I tell Americans about Israeli politics, I say that there is no Left-Left. Everyone pretends to be right-wing, but in essence they are left-wing.”
He said that during the cabinet discussions, voices were heard calling for accepting Hamas’ demands. “In the cabinet, they said: ‘We need to accept Hamas’s dictate, leave the Strip, accept the hostages and return to take care of Gaza after two or three years.'” He added: “Those who say ‘why didn’t you achieve 100%’ were prepared to accept 0.”
Netanyahu claimed that if he had accepted these positions, Israel would have left its enemies in a position of strength: “If I had listened to them and stopped the war, the Iranian axis would have remained at the peak of its power, along with Daif, Sinwar, Haniyeh, Nasrallah, Assad and Khamenei.”
Towards the end, Netanyahu compared his government’s policy to that of his predecessors: “They are preaching to us?! They gave sovereign maritime territory to Lebanon, we are entering the territory. There is peace from our strength – and there is surrender from their weakness.” He concluded his remarks with another sting: “Hezbollah welcomed their agreement and it curses our agreement. That is the difference.”