BIBI: ‘THIS IS YOUR WAR AS WELL’
Warning as Iran proxies hit US
BENJAMIN Netanyahu’s warning to America could not have been more timely. Over the weekend, I sat down with the Israeli prime minister in the country’s security HQ in Tel Aviv for an exclusive interview. During it, he issued an urgent warning to the US.
“I’ve told President Biden, I’ve told all the leaders who came here, this is your war as well because this is not merely a minor skirmish,” he said. “This is part of a major confrontation between the moderate axis of Israel and the moderate Arab states against Iran. Its proxies are killing Americans as we speak.”
I asked the prime minister if he meant the dozens of attacks on US bases in Iraq since Oct. 7. “Not just Iraq,” he said. Hours later news emerged of the drone strike on American soldiers in Jordan. The Biden administration has already blamed Iran for the attack which left three US servicemen dead and at least 34 other injured.
It was a fast reminder of something Netanyahu has been warning about for decades. That the militant regime in Iran only attacks Israel as its first target. Not its last. America — and the rest of the West — are next.
“Let me tell you,” Netanyahu said to me, “I think in America the great majority of people support Israel. They understand instinctively that Israel is fighting their battle. They understand instinctively what the terrorists, the radical Islamists, say. They say we’re the small Satan. America is the great Satan.”
Hezbollah looming
But what of the Biden administration? Before Christmas, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was reported to have told the Israelis that they didn’t have the “credit” for a prolonged war in Gaza.
Netanyahu and most other Israeli security officials believe that they need many months to destroy Hamas entirely in Gaza. But with every week there seems to be growing pressure on the Israelis to stop. And all this is before the seemingly inevitable Israeli war on its northern border with Hezbollah.
That other Iranian proxy army is perched in southern Lebanon with an arsenal of around 150,000 sophisticated rockets aimed at Israel. Their presence means that tens of thousands of Israeli families are displaced people in their own country, now in their fourth month away from their homes.
On Sunday, Netanyahu admitted for the first time that it is Israel that has been taking action deep inside Lebanon. Including, presumably, the targeted strike against senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri in a southern suburb of Beirut earlier this month.
The admission slipped out as he recalled the debate before Oct. 7 over whether Israel could hit a Hezbollah tent on its border. “Well, you know, [since Oct. 7] we’ve gone a considerable distance beyond that.”
But how will Israel finish its war in Gaza and against Iran’s proxy in Lebanon? Especially if American support wanes?
‘Do what we need to’
“Look, you know this statement, ‘A man’s got to do what a man’s gotta do?’ Remember the days when you can actually say that? Well, today you say, ‘A person has to do what a person has to do.’ OK. Well, let me extend that. A nation has to do what it has to do to survive. And if we take action both in the south and in the north, that is understood by many to be a just action.”
I referred to the public demonstrations against Israel’s actions in Gaza and wondered what that would look like if the war goes on and extends.
Netanyahu was bullish. “If they [the Western leaders] cannot stand the heat of public opinion, then we’ll just have to do it alone. We will do what we need to do.”
Of course, America and Britain are starting to make sure that Israel is not having to deal with all these terror threats alone. In the past month American and British forces have taken the fight to the Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen. This is the group that has been attacking Western vessels in the Red Sea, causing an international shipping crisis.
Yet apart from that, surely Is
rael’s allies realize the scale of the Iranian threat, and the fact that Israel is having to fight Iran’s armies on four fronts at the moment?
“Everybody, of the leaders that I speak to, they all understand that,” Netanyahu said.
Which suggests that he is used to world leaders saying one thing to him in private and another thing in public. “But again, we’ll do what we need to do,” he said. “Israel will do what it needs to do to protect itself.”
Netanyahu is now the longest serving prime minister in Israeli history, having served terms in office with breaks since 1996. He has consistently warned the world of the dangers of a nucleararmed Iran and made it his mission to stop the mullahs ever getting the bomb.
But still Iran has got closer to the bomb. Netanyahu was spiky on this question. Without getting into the details of Israel’s clandestine activities he said, “Well, I think that we’ve delayed Iran’s quest for the bomb, probably by a decade.”
End of his road?
Now, with all these terror threats against American as well as Israeli targets, and the mullahs trying to get nukes, isn’t all this just going to continue until there is regime change in Iran? “You’re probably right,” he said. “Does anyone agree with you?” I asked. “Well, I agree with me.”
It was a reminder of the self-assurance that Netanyahu has had throughout his political career. He has not been afraid to do what he feels he needs to do to keep Israel safe. And he has not been afraid of standing against even American presidents — not least President Barack Obama — when he believes that they are wrong.
How many presidents has he seen come and go now, I asked. “Who’s counting?” he shrugged.
For someone who has made it his life’s mission to protect the Jewish state the failures of Israel’s security apparatus on Oct. 7 clearly sit hard.
Knowing that it will be used against him by his political opponents he refused to be drawn on any personal responsibility, or failures, on the day. But in Israel many people — including a majority of the public — seem to think that this is the end of Netanyahu’s road.
I asked him if his political career has ended in failure.
“I don’t care,” he said. “This whole legacy obsession is one that I don’t really care very much for. It’s not my biography that counts. The sands of time, you know, will wash away. The waves will wash away everything. All the footprints in the sand. But, you know, we have to do what we can in the time that we have available to defend this country and to assure its future. And that’s what I’m doing. That’s what I care about.”