Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke with CNN about the shifting world opinion regarding the war in Gaza. “If we want Hamas to go away, we have to take Rafah. Knowing that Hamas has stated they will attack us again and again, we have no other choice. if we don't destroy them completely, they will rebuild and rearm, and we will meet them again in another two years. We tried that for seventeen years and it has failed.”
He commented on the recent differences of opinion between US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu, particularly regarding Rafah: “We can resolve this by achieving two goals. One is to destroy Hamas. The second is to ensure that the one million Gazans that are in Rafah are moved before we take the city.”
He gave his solution for evacuating the city: “There is a fairly big area north of Khan Yunis where we can move them in the meantime. It's not a five-star hotel, it's not pleasant there, but nothing here is something that we wanted to do. I wish our neighbors were Vermont and Connecticut, but they aren't, and we got to deal with it.”
Bennett explained why Israel has not engaged in a campaign to target Hamas leaders as the USA did with Osama Bin Laden. “It's not about only Sinwar. Even if you take out Sinwar, you still have this organization called Hamas, and we have to dismantle the organization so it doesn't rebuild itself. You need to reach a critical mass of surrender and the destruction of Hamas for it not to be able to rebuild.”
He also addressed the concerns that the USA might suspend military aid to Israel if Israel does invade Rafah: “We're fighting the war against radical Islam. Hamas is not about peace, it's not about the Palestinians, it's about radical Islam. If we are prevented from defeating radical Islam in Gaza, you're going to meet radical Islam again here in New York, in London, on the streets, you're going to meet it across the world. Every Islamic radical terrorist is looking at what's going on in Gaza, and that's their litmus test - do we have the resolve? We knew it was going to be tough, but you can't stop in the middle just because it's tough.”
“When Japan attacked America and killed twenty-four hundred Americans at Pearl Harbor, America took four years. Three million Japanese died in that war. You did some shameful things, like camps for Japanese people. America wasn’t perfect, but America was darn good at fighting and defeating the total evil that Japan and Nazi Germany presented back then. We're fighting total evil, and we might be imperfect, but we're doing everyone’s job and the world should back Israel. Otherwise, everyone's going to face it. These zombie murderers are going to come right over here.”
He also commented on the recent report from US intelligence services casting doubts on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s capacity as a leader. “Israel is a vibrant democracy, and it's no secret that there is massive unrest in Israel vis-à-vis the political situation.”
He turned to the subject of Jonathan Glazer’s controversial Oscar acceptance speech. “He thinks he's distancing himself from Israel, and somehow he'll be loved. Jews have tried the approach of being murdered again and again and hoping for sympathy. That's not something that I believe in. I think that we need to be strong, we need to be proud, we're in the right. Nobody in Israel wanted this. Hamas attacked and murdered and raped our women and kidnapped our kids and burnt entire families. Who's he kissing up to? Do you think you're going to be more popular because you get some clapping there? Stand up for your nation, stand up for the right. This is not only about Jews, it's about right and wrong. They are in the wrong, we're in the right. Stand behind us.”