Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday vowed Israel will not let Iran renew its ballistic-missile and nuclear-weapons program.
The opposition was trying to form a government with the Muslim Brotherhood, he said during a Knesset debate. He also criticized former prime minister Naftali Bennett.
Regarding his recent trip to Florida to meet with US President Donald Trump, Netanyahu said they shared “a resolute position: We will not allow Iran to rebuild its ballistic-missile industry or renew the nuclear program that we severely damaged in Operation Rising Lion.”
“Our position is zero enrichment capability, the removal of all enriched uranium from Iran, and continuous oversight of nuclear facilities,” he said.
In response to the ongoing protests by the Iranian people against the regime, Netanyahu said: “We may be standing at a decisive moment in which the Iranian people will take their fate into their own hands.”
Bennett and the government that led in 2021-2022 was the first governing coalition to ever sit with an Arab party, he said.
“The Bennett government removed enforcement over what is happening in the Negev and accepted [Ra’am (United Arab List) chairman] Mansour Abbas’s demand,” he added.
Netanyahu accused the opposition of seeking to form a government with the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Do not speak in the name of the Zionist majority,” he said. “You are the ones who relied on and seek to rely on the Muslim Brotherhood. You are the radical minority. I want to hear you say that you will not form a government with the Muslim Brotherhood.”
“I do not deny the right to vote or be elected, but I also do not deny the duty to tell the coalition the truth,” Netanyahu said. “You intend to form a government with the Muslim Brotherhood, and you are trying in various ways to conceal it. The public does not buy it and knows the truth.”
PM Netanyahu: Strike on Iran removed existential threats
The Knesset debate was titled: “Extremist government that acts contrary to the Zionist majority and harms national cohesion and the fundamental values of the State of Israel.” It was raised by the opposition and required the prime minister’s presence.
Netanyahu criticized the opposition’s topic of debate and said, “I heard you complaining about what you call the government’s ‘extreme decision-making.’ Our national resilience is first and foremost our very existence, because without existence, there is no resilience.”
“The most important decision of the Israeli government was to strike Iran to remove two threats to our very existence: the nuclear threat and the threat of tens of thousands of ballistic missiles,” he said. “There was a third existential threat: the tightening ring of the axis of evil.”
Netanyahu praised what he said were his government’s achievements.
“After two years of war, the shekel has strengthened significantly, the stock exchange has surged by dozens of percent over the past year, unemployment is at a low, hi-tech investment has returned in force, and housing prices have fallen for the first time in years,” he said. “We signed a massive gas deal with Egypt that will bring NIS 60 billion into state coffers.”
In response, opposition MKs shouted: “Just cancel the agreement already.”
Netanyahu praised the economy for being strong despite two years of war.
“The war indeed challenged us, but I always said that when we win, the economy will grow significantly, and that is exactly what is happening now,” he said. “The British weekly The Economist ranks Israel’s economy among the top three in the world.”
Netanyahu said the most recent outline of the controversial haredi (ultra-Orthodox) conscription bill was historic.
There will only be “full conscription,” he said.
“Our law serves the country, and your law serves you politically,” he told the opposition. “We have increased the number of recruits fourfold. Which law is better, your draft-evasion law or our draft law? Our law serves the state; your law serves you politically.”
Netanyahu accused the opposition of attempting to derail the legislation rather than support haredi enlistment.
“You are not interested in conscription,” he said. “Your biggest fear is that the law will work, that it will pass, and that tens of thousands of haredi men will enlist in the IDF.”
“We want to recruit haredim,” Netanyahu said. “You want to recruit them to your political campaign.”
Critics argue that the current version of the haredi draft bill fails to enforce conscription and instead serves as a political solution, following the departure of the haredi parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, from the government in July over a previous version of the bill.
The IDF has repeatedly said it urgently lacks manpower, especially after two years of war.
Netanyahu expressed support for the government’s proposal of a politically appointed commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding the October 7 massacre rather than one led by the judiciary.
He reiterated his opposition to an independent state commission of inquiry, which polls have shown the majority of the public supports, and victims of the October 7 massacre have called for.
In response to Netanyahu’s remarks about the haredi draft bill, opposition leader Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) said: “Bereaved families are sitting and breaking down as they watch attempts to grant the haredim an exemption.”
Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz said, “How did people who compare sanctions against those who evade service in the IDF to the yellow badge Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust become your natural partners?”
He was referring to UTJ chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf’s remarks at a Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting on Sunday that likened enforcing yeshiva students’ conscription to the military to “placing a yellow star on them.”