Benjamin Netanyahu on the War in Ukraine and Israel’s Relationship with Russia

it is uh now my privilege uh to welcome via satellite Benjamin Netanyahu he is already Israel's longest serving leader and earlier this month he was elected to serve once again as prime minister his victory marking uh what was a remarkable comeback after his ousting a year and a half ago he's now building his coalition government during a time of global conflict including Iran's expansion which nuclear program which is longstead it is the greatest threat to the world during his time away from Office wrote a book BB my story it was released earlier this fall and incoming prime minister Netanyahu who's now joining us in his first interview with the U.S media since winning the election prime minister thank you for joining us this afternoon but thank you I'm not sure it's my first interview but oh goodness it's a very important interview thank you prime minister um I I had seen some of the interviews you had done actually with some uh religious Evangelical groups I hadn't seen it with the media um let's let's talk if I could um the Korea is a media Judy Woodruff is a media uh uh what is it the first one that I gave was with Bill Meyer is he Media or entertainment he's great we we can debate the timing of those which I think were before you were prime minister um but um let's let's not squabble over these things there's no reason there's no reason to squabble prime minister uh help help us just to understand this we are at a time we we had uh uh the Secretary of the Treasury here uh this morning we've been trying to spend a lot of time trying to understand uh what is really going on here we also spent some time with president zielinski and actually that's where I wanted to start the conversation uh because he effectively asked you uh straight up from here um about whether you could help him with a missile air defense systems he had some teams uh I think asking lobbying for that from you and I know you've had a lot of concerns about doing that uh he questioned your relationship with President Putin and I wanted you to respond if you could to that well I'm sure I'll respond to it directly to him because we had a phone conversation he called to congratulate me after I won the elections before I formed the government and I said look I'll get back to you this is exactly what I said to him I'll get back here we didn't speak about specific things a specific systems or weapons or things of that sort but about aid about General Aid and yes I assume he's thinking about that as well I said I'm going to one of the first things I'll do not the first but one of the first things is to sit down with our military people our Intel people are far enough their foreign policy people and make a decision I haven't dealt with it and I did not want to preempt the outgoing prime minister when he sought to negotiate or barter some kind of arrangement between uh zielinski and Putin people approached me I said there is one prime minister at a time let him do what he can but I said on this issue as well as any other issue that pertains to Ukraine I'll meet and make a decision and you can see that I'm being guarded and careful and I'm fudging the answer what's your view of and relationship with President Putin at this point well it was a very important relationship because because it dealt with uh Israel's vital security interest Iran has been trying to do two things one it's trying to develop a nuclear Arsenal which it openly says it will use to wipe Israel off the map and by the way it will also threaten America once it develops its other project which is intercontinental ballistic missiles so when Iran chants death to Israel death to America they mean both they certainly mean to threaten you with death and that has to be stopped but the second thing that Iran was trying to do and is trying to do all the time is to build another Terror front in addition to the one that they built with Hezbollah and Lebanon and the one they support with Hamas in Gaza they want to build a third tariff front against us actually a military front with 80 000 Shiite militia commanded by Iranian generals on our northern border in Syria I've added my point and I've resolved several years ago in my stints as prime minister to block them what do we do how do we block them we bomb them continuously we bomb their forces their commanders their weapons uh their bases every time so we prevented them effectively from doing it but it's an ongoing effort when we bomb them we bomb them from the air we don't bomb them with artillery our Pilots go into the Skies of Syria and there we meet the Soviet rather the Russian Pilots That's a slip of the tongue it's interesting but I remember as a young Soldier something that I described in my book my Adventures if you will sometimes my brushes with death when I was a younger Soldier and then officer and a special unit but I remember we were fighting the Russians the Russian the Soviet Army Soviet Pilots were shot down by Israelis 50 years ago over the Skies of uh of Sue heads and they shot down Israeli pilots and the last I knew is a Russian Israeli War and so I went to uh uh to see a President Putin and Moscow and I said do we want to start such a war because I'm absolutely committed to stopping the Iranians I will not let at any cost Iran to establish this world and I I think he understood that I was serious and as a result We Set uh a mechanism a coordinating mechanism that served us well over the years our Pilots almost smashed into each other several times we had to recalibrate I brought the uh chief of the Air Force the chief of staff uh chief of military intelligence to meet their counterparts in Moscow to prevent this Clash this war this Israeli Russian war and it worked so you asked me how how is that relationship first of all it was very important and still very important therefore when Israel looks at the question of our relations with Russia it has obviously many many components this is a key component that is preserving Israel's freedom of of action over the Skies of Syria uh is a very very important National Security so how do you balance that though with what are clearly uh human rights issues and this war in Ukraine and and elsewhere uh things that uh President Putin and the Russians have done and I I appreciate and 100 the the perspective that you have about the the Iran uh component of this but is there a balance or can no balance be struck no there is a balance there's there's always a balance and how do you do this you do this every day I mean this is what leaders do you you know in general I would say this the foreign policies of democracies is a combination of uh of uh moral principles and uh uh and expediency or interest and the Primacy what is what what assumes privacy interests or values uh and and the answer is neither you usually balance the two you say well how can how can you deal with this without government well how does President Biden's been a close friend truly a close friend over the last 40 years and we often agree to disagree we say we love each other but we disagree fine uh but how does President Biden whom I respect how does he deal with countries that are not particularly uh that do not share America's values well he deals with them he deals with them in uh in China he deals with them in uh in uh the Middle East and not Israel but other countries he deals with them elsewhere he deals with them with Russia too where do you balance where do you draw the line but that's an interesting War a line right and and you you hear critiques about it all the time where's the morality of it on one end and where is the practicality of it on the other and you just you just said it okay I think you draw the line okay I'll tell you where you draw the line in matters it relate to the very existence of countries in my country every other day is faced with an existential matter there I go for the Existence not just security I'm not talking about anything could be interpreted as existence this or that security issue no when things relate to your very existence I I say that comes first so for example in the book I described how I had to face uh President Obama whom I respected I disagreed with but I respected uh forcefully on the Iran nuclear deal which I I thought would pay Iran's uh path with gold with hundreds of billions of dollars to an effective nuclear Arsenal I had no choice but to go to the American Congress to a joint session of Congress to which I was invited and addressed the the American Congress and the American people and the world and it was a very difficult decision to make why did I do that because I thought this deal then as it would now threaten the very existence of Israel and you might say well you know there are other considerations no there weren't any I made that decision when you have existential questions you have to decide here's an existential question in Ukraine this conflict as long morphed into something else than the the tragedy the horror that we are seeing on our screens what do you think we moved into I think that when it began people ask me is it possible that it would deteriorate to uh tactical nuclear weapons that's another word for nuclear weapons because nuclear weapons are nuclear weapons with that line that hasn't been crossed for three quarters of a century uh since the Inception of these weapons would that line be crossed I said no and I can honestly tell you A year later or so that I think the probability is still low but I wouldn't rule it out completely and I'm sure that President Biden and the American uh the American government staff that is charged with it has got to be thinking about that alongside the other things that you're mentioning and does that overcome other things uh it depends I don't know the balance I I have you know they make their own judgments as I'm going to do with my staff but I think this is this is an example this is not this is not to supplant the conversation that I have to have with my people or the conversation that President Biden assuredly has with his people that I'm giving you an example on the balance you ask me how do you balance this question of values and interest uh when the interest is powerful enough let me ask about Iran uh because you actually I mean you had a uh if it deals with existence assure existence first on the issue of Iran and on that deal and you aligned yourself with President Trump who ended that deal there's an argument to be made we are in no better shape today do you agree with that no no I think that Iran without a deal is an isolated country uh thankfully it's more isolated now because the whole world because of the Valor the extraordinary courage of these Iranian women and men uh were literally sacrificing their lives for Freedom that people now across a wide spectrum across many lands see the true face of this horrible regime if this regime had this deal the deal would do the following the deal would not stop Iran from having nuclear weapons it would pay them an enormous amount uh of money by sanctions relief and other things that would give them capabilities to build a huge Arsenal and in addition to uh foment and Export their terrorism and aggression in the Middle East and Beyond to every part of the world uh the reason it wouldn't stop them is one because they cheat and second even if they don't cheat if they just keep the deal the deal lets them basically off the hook with International approval in the in about four years three years to enrich uranium as much as they want unlimited and that's the critical component of making bombs from there uh as President Obama himself said once once they reach that point they can break out to nuclear weapons uh in in no time it's not uh uh you know it's a it's nothing for them so the deal actually says go ahead move to the threshold of becoming a threshold nuclear estate with International an international seal of approval and Megabucks and that's crazy so you ask well what's the alternative I mean they're moving there anyway right well first of all there is no alternative if you want to stop a rogue Nation from becoming a nuclear power there is no alternative to a credible military option the threat to use it and the willingness to you and and using it if the threat doesn't work and I would couple that with crippling economic sanctions Iran uh that has worked actually our outgoing Chief of Staff said that previous Chief of Staff said that because of the actions I'm quoting him because I don't want to quote myself he said because of the actions that Israel uh performed over the last decade we put Iran back a decade did we stop it no but we delayed it they would have had a nuclear Arsenal long ago if we didn't do so many how close do you think they are now and what do you do about that well I think they're working to be close to A-bomb but they're not close to uh an arsenal of bombs and they still have problems they have we can argue how long it is I don't think it's days I don't think it's months but it's probably a couple of years they have to cross certain thresholds and they will if they can get away with it they won't if they think that they that stiff action will be taken against them Iran you know the only time that Iran completely suspended its program it was after the Gulf War uh in 2001 I think whatever uh when they thought that the United's 2002 am I I'm off by three two thousand three okay they suspended their action because they were sure that after the conquest of Iraq uh the United States would turn on Iran and give them an ultimatum either dismantle your program or suffer the same fake so in fact they suspended their program in fact they suspended it for a year after a year they realized that the Bush Administration was not going to do anything to them it focused on the Middle East it focused on other things but it didn't focus on them and so they went back the only thing they did was they hid it they they dismantled their military overtly military program and hit it in fake research organizations which I describe a raid that I sent the Mossad to the heart of Tehran and they went into the secret nuclear archive Atomic Archive of Iran hidden in a dilapidated Warehouse in the outskirts of Tehran and they busted the Saints we knew which saves were hiding these things these fantastically modern saves in this dilapidated Warehouse took out half a ton of material CDs files and so on brought it to Israel and there we saw how Iran was lying it said we're not developing nuclear weapons there is a Fatima there black and white the Iranian mission five nuclear program five nuclear bombs hiroshima's style bombs 15 kilograms uh uh bombs in 2002 that's 20 years ago so that's where Iran is you're not going to get them to stop because of this or that big deal which just gives them money to treatment you're going to make them stop if they think as they did then short for a short time that you will take action against them there is no substitute and one last thing because I think this is such a crucial thing so let me go beyond soundbite mode okay because I think this is serious if you look at the wrong Rogue Nations now who develop who sought to develop nuclear weapons one was Libya or rather one was Saddam Hussein's Iraq it was stopped by an Israeli military action against the OC Iraq reactor the second was Syria that tried to develop a nuclear reactor in a place called the resort it was stopped by Israeli military action the third was qadhafi he was stopped by the threat of American military action so he dismantled it voluntarily the fourth is North Korea North Korea made deals and signed the npt it was signatory to all these things and through successive American administrations they realized there is no danger so they developed nuclear weapons and now they're developing the means to deliver it to every city in the United States half of Asia is quaking in fear over this anti-economy that is now threatening a good chunk of Asia and Japan and everyone else that's nothing compared to Iran Iran is not if it does not fear a military option will develop will become 20 or 30 or 40 times the threat that North Korea poses because it is a theological ideological regime don't let Iran have nuclear weapons that's one of the reasons I'm coming back to the boggy mess of Israeli politics it is not a joyful ride I want to talk about Israeli politics uh in just a moment but I want to talk about actually the politics of the United States for a moment in its relationship with Israel you had a very good relationship with President Trump I'm curious about what you think about him now well first of all I think about him now what I thought then did he did extraordinary things for Israel I mean he uh he first of all he went out of this horrible deal and I I must say I didn't have to persuade him very hard I'd have to persuade him at all I did show him the the stuff we brought out of Tehran the secret comic archive I bought it I brought the main findings to the Oval Office but he didn't need it he was going to do it anyway uh that's one thing that's tremendously important because I think it set Iran back contrary to the Common View the second thing that he did was recognize finally after three thousand years after King David declared Jerusalem as our Capital finally an American president recognized that this historical fact which it defies understanding how people refuse to recognize that he then moved the American Embassy there he recognized our sovereignty over the Golan Heights which administrations didn't so I think he's very he was very very good to his will and I appreciate that deeply what do you think about the midterms here which were in large part of rebuke of former president Trump and how do you think that politics is going to impact the relationship Andrew I got to tell you this I just went through a year of Israeli politics no I just went through three years of Israeli politics and four elections one of which I lost and now I won and so I'm making my uh my second comeback I've had enough of our politics uh in order not to enter your problems let me ask you one other political question about President Trump who who you did align yourself with though um president uh former president Trump met with Kanye West last week who's making these anti-semitic remarks repeatedly also met with a a known anti-semite and white nationalist what do you think that's about what do you think of it I I just first of all I think Kanye West should be condemned for this anti-semitic grantings um because anti-Semitism anti-Semitism challenges the basic idea we have of uh of civilization that should at least give the equal rights to every human being and it just says we take a cluster of human beings we take a group of human beings Jews we don't look at them individually if you could like somebody you can dislike somebody you can approve discipline you disapprove of the law and this has served this is one of the oldest hatreds in history perhaps the oldest systemic what do you think here's here's a here's a politician who you know well who thinks a friend of Israel meeting with and spending time with and allowing for this hate to take place what do you think you've talked to him I imagine no I didn't talk to him after not about this but no I haven't talked to them at all for quite some time but I can tell you this I think it was ill-advised I think it was a mistake I said so and I hope you know he's probably smart enough not probably he is I'm a very smart man and he probably realizes that this is a problem to say the least it was ill-advisor was wrong um I want to talk about Saudi Arabia real quick in terms of the relationship between Israel and Saudi and what you think is going to take place during your prime prime ministership in terms of that relationship Andrew if I had to say what are my goals uh you know I have several and I'm not going to bore you with the the Dozen that I've put in my mind but I have two overriding rules goals the first one we already talked about it's the block Iran's uh nuclear uh Ambitions to become a nuclear power to threaten the existence of Israel and threaten the security of the world including America um that's the first complementing that is something that drives that comes out is is to make it increase the circle of Peace but by an order of magnitude if we could make peace with Saudi Arabia this would be a Quantum Leap in the Stark Abraham Accords the four peace treaties that I made with President Trump's help uh to uh between Israel and the Arab countries in the United Emirates Bahrain Morocco and Sudan Saudi Arabia would affect the peace with Saudi Arabia would effectively begin to end the Arab Israeli conflict not the palestinian-israeli conflict but the Arab Israeli conflict and that would be a boon to peace it would be a boon to the world it would make a huge difference it already is we already see the kind of peace that we enacted with the United Arab Emirates you could see that changing even economically the lives of Israelis the lives of the emiratis I mean the whole thing is different from what from the cold piece we had before with Egypt and Jordan so I think that is possible will it it's a decision that uh that the Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman will have to make you can't make it for him but I will say this I'll give you an indication of where things might go depending on him uh it is that there's no way that we would have made the four historic peace treaties with the Arab states the Gulf States uh first without Saudi approval now you know that because before the Abraham Accords we secured uh freedom of flights over Saudi Arabia so you have to know I don't know if your audience know this but every day uh and over time hundreds of thousands of Israelis have already flown over Saudi Arabia back and forth to uh to the Gulf States and that's I think that that could spell that could be a harbinger of a very good future very good future I want to talk about two other issues and I know where over time China you know president XI there's a relationship that you have with President XI what do you want that relationship to be and do you have questions about it given all of the questions I think that the globe now has about what's taking place in China well I probably have the same questions that the leaders of the United States and the leaders of the uh Western Europe everybody else has uh I think there are two questions one uh I think what you're trying to focus on is the the question of uh human rights in China and so on and that's we already discussed the question of the balancing of values and interest uh the world has great economic interest in China it also has a great strategic interest to ensure uh to ensure world peace and stability and I would say rather than answer on China I met president XI I met as a success his predecessor by the way is a very different personality when I first came to uh to Beijing I described this some people would say hilarious conversation I had with him in the book I describe it I'll just hear this is an aside but I want to plug on a bashably in my books I want to tell you this he he said I really respect the uh I'll get back to sheet don't worry but he said this he said um I really respect the Jewish people and I said well I really respect the Chinese people and he said the Jewish people and the Chinese people are the um you know among the oldest civilizations in the world and I said yeah that's true and I said but you know there's a difference he said what's the difference well I said how many Chinese are there he said at the time a billion something a billion point one and I said and how many Jews are there in the world he said uh I asked him he didn't know so I said um oh at the at that time a little more than uh 12 million and you know all the Chinese Jaws dropped in the room because that was sort of a two suburbs of the of Beijing and he asked me well uh how come if you're you know we go back that far and I said well you and I also made the impolitic impulse however you say I didn't the uh impolite uh reference to the Indians I said you and we and the Indians the oldest musicians on Earth uh but you and the Indians kept your country uh you had diasporas but you kept your home country we lost our country and so for several thousand years we're trying to get back to our homeland uh because in our diaspora we suffered enormous uh uh massacres expulsions programs and ultimately the Holocaust and that's why our the thrust of Jewish history has been to come back and reconstitute our national life and our historic Homeland and therefore the question that I deal with China and you should deal with China too is what guarantees not only the existence of my country the one and only Jewish state that has been re-established as a miracle of History what guarantees the future of free societies and I maintain that there are two guarantors the first guarantor is a very strong United States of America because because the nature of Nations is not different from the nature of humans it tends to favor the strong whether the strong or moral or not history doesn't choose between moral Nations or immoral Nations but it does choose between the strong and the weak America should be very strong the second thing is when I say strong I mean economically militarily in every other way too but the second thing is it has to be strong in its belief in the Primacy of freedom that is of value that is worth fighting for and it's also worth dying for let me ask your final question and it's about Israel and it's about your legacy and it's about whether you think there is a two-state solution ultimately there's a one-state solution what you think about the humanitarian and human rights issues that continue to uh be challenged by this this ongoing situation which has just remained unresolved for so long if we had this conversation a decade from now what would you want to have happened well I I I would like to have a resolution of the palestinian-israeli conflict but so did my predecessors for a long time I was presented uh as the obstacle to peace you know we were about to have peace uh we had the tragic assassination unbelievable assassination of of a sakurabi and had he lived assuming that he would have won the election uh against me I don't think he would have but you know it's anyone's guess the polls would show that I would have won but had he lived had he won the election we would have had peace with the Palestinians no well it it didn't turn out to be peace because we had a campaign of Terror uh that the Palestinians uh adopted when Robin was alive but uh look uh after I lost the election after ravine's assassination I won the election but I was booted out after three years people said you know there's an obstacle to peace there let the Palestinians out of the way all these boorish right-wingers I'm always described that I'm this strong man you know sort of Eastern European strong man who's trying to uh Trump the trample on democracy and so on uh all right you got rid of this guy the obstacle to peace now you got uh Barak uh you got uh Edward Ulmer uh Barack offered them just about everything omrid offered them everything and they wouldn't take it why wouldn't they take it because just as Shimon Paris tried right after rabin's assassination actually he was a prime minister none of them got to peace why didn't they get to peace with the Palestinians because the Palestinians don't want peace and does that mean that you don't think that there can ever be peace no I think they can I think they've suffered from a terrible degradation of leadership uh they've been commandeered by leaders who cling and and promote this fantasy that Israel will disappear that they don't have to accomplish what do you have to do on your side to get there you have this country that has great riches great growth you know you've got security you've got all of these things yeah I'm a big free marketeer so I've uh probably done more to help the Palestinian economy and Judaism America the West Bank or uh or elsewhere more than more than anyone else but beyond the I don't say that an economic piece is a substitute for a political piece but I say that a political piece will only be achieved when the Palestinians abandon their continual century-old goal of eliminating the Jewish State before it was born in after it was established but I think there there's a there's a a more important routine if the Palestinians want to sit down and talk peace to me tomorrow I'll do it but I think realistically their politics are so messed up uh that it's not really going to work I adopted a different course people said unless you solve the Palestinian problem you're not going to get to peace with a broad Arab world and the Palestinians remember a one to two percent of the entire Arab world but that tale was wagging the dog because they refused to make peace with Israel they don't want peace with Israel they want a peace without Israel they don't want to state next to Israel they want a state instead of us so if we wait for the Palestinians which we did we waited for a quarter of a century since the last peace agreement after Egypt was Anwar Sadat and after uh Jordan with the late King Hussein we got no peace quarter Century to pass if we're going to wait for the Palestinians we'll wait another quarter Century maybe another half century I decided to go directly to the Arab world and having increased Israel's power in technology in economy in Enterprise and having frankly increased Israel's power militarily and through Military Intelligence cyber you name it we became to the Arab countries not an enemy but an indispensable Ally to counter Iran's aggression and to better the lives of their people and they said it couldn't be done I remember there was an advertisement when I was a young boy and I visited the United States there was some Believe It or Not cigarette advertising they said it couldn't be done they created some filter cigarette well they said it couldn't be done they said you could not do peace with the Arab world without making peace with the Palestinians well we did and we're going to continue and I will sit down with the Palestinians tomorrow during the broadening of the peace as I hope with Saudi Arabia and others but I'm not going to wait for them if people said it's only going to work inside out from the Palestinians to the Arab world I say maybe so while I'm not waiting we'll work outside in too and by the way if the Palestinian rejectionist and that's who they are they reject the idea of a Jewish state if the Palestinian rejectionists who call for our disappearance and our Annihilation some of them violently like Hamas some of them in other ways like my PLO if they abandoned this door we'll have peace it'll be a different kind of Peace it'll be a peace in which Israel contains controls security otherwise the peace will collapse in five minutes but it will be a good piece for them because they'll control their lives or govern themselves they won't have control over security under any foreseeable circumstance I'm telling you that but I think we could do a lot more will it happen I think there's a greater chance that it will happen under my leadership because I think I have greater credibility to create the broader peace that will ultimately lead to the inner peace to the immediate peace with the Palestinians so that's uh that's not the long-winded answer it's actually the shortest route to peace that I can think of peace with the Palestinians we're going to make peace with uh hundreds of millions of Arabs prime minister Netanyahu we want to thank you for the conversation it may not be the first but it was the best interview with the U.S media prime minister Netanyahu thank you again for joining us interview with the New York Times and also your uh thank you very kindly for giving me this opportunity to plug my book if you're looking for a life of purpose I look forward to seeing you in person read the book no read them I mean it I think of the green insights thank you sir it was only like worth living which is a life of purpose okay thank you prime minister see you very soon [Applause]

Channel: New York Times Events

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Id: ShdJbF53P2o

Length: 35min 31sec (2131 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 01 2022