Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday evening held a telephone interview with Channel 13 News in which he discussed the government's response to the coronavirus pandemic.
"Nobody knows how the disease behaves - but it is growing very quickly. We are in the midst of a huge pandemic, so from the first moment it was brought to my attention, I decided on overpreparation because the cost of making a mistake is huge - we see it in Italy and in other countries," Netanyahu noted.
The Prime Minister rejected the criticism against the decision to use the Shin Bet’s technological capabilities to monitor coronavirus patients, stating that the discussions that had been carried out ensured him that information could not be misused.
"You’ll be surprised, it is not only the left which fears the misuse of such information, but also the right. These means exist, the potential exists. I didn't let it come to fruition. The criticism is baseless.”
On the claims that the health system is not prepared to deal with the pandemic, Netanyahu said, "Nobody knows that once in a century there will be such a pandemic. Once there is a real outbreak, the difference between us and Germany or Italy is marginal. The only real way to address this is to stop the pandemic. We are taking our steps but without the public and without the discipline of the public, there is nothing."
Asked how long it will take for the country to emerge from the crisis, the Prime Minister replied, "I speak to world leaders and heads of health systems in the world, nobody has an answer. We are giving unemployment benefits now. We entered this crisis in good financial shape."
"We are crunching the economy until Passover, knowing that we will pay an economic price so as not to pay the price of thousands of people who will die. This is about life and death. The economy can withstand it - no one here will starve," Netanyahu added.
The Prime Minister was asked whether he was comfortable with his trial being postponed in the wake of the crisis and replied, "I will not address this at all. I am also barely dealing with politics. 98 percent of the time I deal with coronavirus and 2 percent with politics."
Netanyahu called on Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid to join the government, saying, "We have to go together, it's not a simple thing." At the end of the interview, the Prime Minister said, "I was a commander in Sayeret Matkal, when we would navigate in the Judean Desert and I would see a cloud in the sky, I would take the crew out of the stream. Here it is impossible to get out of the stream. The flood will come and we must prepare for this flood."