Israel is determined to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday at the opening plenum of the Knesset’s winter session. He touted the IDF’s successful airstrike against Iran’s conventional military targets, including its production of antiballistic missiles, early Saturday.
“Stopping the Iranian nuclear program is at the forefront of our minds, and for obvious reasons, I cannot share with you all our plans and actions in this regard,” Netanyahu said.
“Our long-term strategy, which I hope will be achieved in the near future, is to dismantle the axis of evil, cut off its arms in the South and in the North... to exact a heavy price from Iran and its proxies, and to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons,” he said.
“I have not given up, and we will not give up on this central goal,” he added.
Netanyahu had been under pressure to order a retaliatory strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Biden administration had been very public in its insistence that Israel not strike Iran’s nuclear facilities or its oil fields. Netanyahu’s critics have accused him of caving to US pressure and not taking into account Israel’s strategic needs.
Netanyahu defended himself against such charges during his speech.
Security decisions amid US pressure
“We maintain a continuous dialogue with our American friends, but the fateful decisions concerning our security, including the choice of goals and objectives, we make ourselves, according to our interests and considerations,” he said.
The airstrike against Iran’s conventional military complexes had been successful, Netanyahu said.
The IDF hit “dozens of military targets throughout Iran,” he said. “We proved, and not for the first time, that our long arm will reach wherever the call to destroy Israel comes from. We severely damaged Iran’s defense systems and its ability to produce missiles aimed at us.”
Netanyahu stressed that the IDF had not hit symbolic military targets but rather struck at “industrial death factories on an industrial scale, and we dealt them a real blow.”
This attack is a setback for Iran, which is threatening Israel, the region, and the world, he said.
“Iran strives to develop a stockpile of nuclear bombs, which are aimed at destroying us, equipped with long-range missiles, intercontinental missiles that Iran intends to develop,” Netanyahu said.
Tehran “is building an industry of dangerous ballistic missiles,” he said.
Israel is the barrier to Iran’s regional and global ambitions, Netanyahu said, adding that if Israel falls, then so will the Middle East.
“But we have not fallen and we will not fall,” he said. “But we do not fall, and we will not fall. We will win, and the world will be a better place, a safer place. Our victory will not be just for us, it will be for all humanity.”
Netanyahu placed Israel and the West’s battle with Iran within the larger context of the region’s history.
For decades, Pan-Arabism was initially a threat to Israel, but eventually Israel was able to defeat onslaughts from Arab armies and make peace with its neighbors, first with Egypt and then with Jordan, he said.
The threat of Pan-Arabism was replaced by the Islamic Republic, he said, adding that the Islamic regime wants to develop its own regional empire in which there is no place for the State of Israel.
Iran’s plan to destroy Israel is built on three pillars: proxy groups that attack the Jewish state, ballistic-missile capability, and the development of nuclear weapons, Netanyahu said.
Over the past year, the IDF has significantly weakened Iran’s proxy groups, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, he said, and over the past few days, it has damaged Iran’s ballistic-missile capacity.
In reflecting on the last year, since the October 7 massacre, in which more than 1,200 people were killed and another 251 were seized as hostages, Israel had “suffered a severe blow” but had “gotten back on its feet,” with military successes that are “changing the face of the Middle East,” Netanyahu said.
He compared it to a modern-day War of Independence. In 1948, Israel had battled seven armies, and it is now facing enemies on seven fronts, he said.
Netanyahu spoke about the bereaved families who had lost loved ones on October 7 or soldiers in battle and lauded the IDF soldiers for their exploits on the battlefield.
The main objectives of the Israel-Hamas War remained the elimination of Hamas and the return of the remaining 101 captives, he said.
Netanyahu pledged to free all the remaining captives, the living and the dead.
“These days we are seeking every avenue and every means possible to bring everyone home without exception,” he said.
Israel is also determined to create conditions on Israel’s border so that residents of the South and the North can return “safely to their homes,” he said. That is “absolute victory.”