EXCLUSIVE: Ben Shapiro Interviews Benjamin Netanyahu

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Mr.

Prime Minister, thank you so much for taking the time.

Really appreciate it.

So obviously, it's an incredibly busy time.

I want to start by getting your impression of where we are in the war.

How close are we to the end of the war?

Where do things stand in terms of the negotiations right now?

I think we're close to the end of the war, though we're not there yet.

We were attacked on October 7th, exactly

two years ago, less one day.

It was a horrible thing.

It was the worst...

atrocities committed on Jews since the Holocaust, and everybody thought Israel was doomed.

Two years later, we've smashed the Iran Axis, smashed most of its proxies.

Hamas, not finished yet, but we'll get there.

Hezbollah, Syria is gone.

Smashed also Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile program.

Still there, but it rolled it really back with President Trump's help.

And the Houthis.

who are threatening the entire world and maritime shipping.

So Israel emerged from this

horrible day as the strongest power in the Middle East, but we still have things to do to complete the victory.

What started in Gaza will end in Gaza with the release of 40 of our hostages, 46 actually, 20 are alive,

and also the end of Hamas' rule and its

territory in Gaza.

And you suggested, of course, that Hamas can do it the easy way or they can do it the hard way.

That's the same thing that the President of the United States has suggested.

It is pretty incredible what President Trump has attempted to broker here and swiveling the entire world against Hamas, where so much of the world was aligning in favor of many of the priorities that Hamas was promoting a week and a half ago.

Well, I think that's a very important reversal because it really says to the entire world, here are these people.

They're holding, they held over 250 innocent people hostage, grandmothers, grandchildren, Holocaust survivors.

Who the hell holds these people hostage?

And they're trying to basically to blackmail Israel and the entire world to get their terms.

So I think the fact that he turned the tables, we did that together, I think that's important.

And I thought it was a very important thing to say, hey, release those hostages, end Hamas rule, let's get on with the task of pursuing an expanded peace, which I think would be possible once this thing is done.

Now, speaking of the end of the war, obviously we've seen an enormous shift in public opinion, particularly in the United States, against Israel, rising anti-Semitism as a facet of that.

And that has raised a lot of questions for Americans about the relationship between America and Israel.

The Vice President of the United States, J.D.

Vance, gave a fascinating speech back in May of 2024 at the Quincy Institute, where he took kind of a hard-nosed look at the relationship between the United States and Israel.

And the case that he made for the relationship between the United States and Israel was based on what he called America First Interest, the idea that Americans come first in America's own interests, which of course is true.

And then he also suggested that the reason that the America-Israel relationship was vital was for two reasons.

One was the defense mechanism, the sharing mechanism between the United States and Israel.

And the second was Israeli self-sufficiency.

And I want to ask you about sort of both prongs of that.

Starting with explain to Americans why should it matter whether America maintains a strong alliance with Israel in defense terms and tech terms.

And then, second, what is the future of Israeli self-sufficiency, particularly in terms of military assistance, given the amount of help that America has provided during this last war?

Well, let me first start with America First.

That's a natural position.

It would be unnatural to have a different position.

But America First doesn't mean America alone, because all countries need allies.

Superpowers need allies.

China is allies.

Russia is allies.

And if you're without allies who

may develop the technologies that are needed for your defense, or the technologies that are needed for your offense, or the intelligence to save your lives, Why forfeit yourself of these allies?

The problem that you've had over the years, the United States, is that you didn't have these allies pulling their weight.

And Israel is an ally, it's a fighting ally that pulls its weight.

Not only that, not only do we fight, we don't ask for Americans to bring boots on the ground,

we've done the job of defending ourselves pretty well, I'd say, over the last 77 years.

But it's not only that, we've also defeated enemies who are your enemies who are trying to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles.

armed with nuclear warheads to attack your cities.

That's what Iran was doing.

We just knocked out Iran.

Also with the, as I said, with President Trump's very judicious and pointed assistance.

It didn't start World War III.

It didn't require

thousands of Americans to die or to go to Tehran.

No, we had exactly the right alliance in which we shared the

labor and we achieved this neutralization of Iran, which could blackmail every American city.

People probably don't believe it, right?

They don't believe it.

We're far away, right?

No, you're not.

Iran is developing now ballistic missiles that are intercontinental ballistic missiles for 8,000-kilometer range.

What does that mean?

They add another 3,000 kilometers and they've got under their gun, under their atomic guns, the New York City in target, Washington, Boston, Miami,

Mar-a-Lago.

Okay, so that is a very great danger.

You don't want to be under the nuclear gun of these people who are not necessarily rational and who chant death to America.

So I think Israel has played a very important part in pushing that threat away.

But the other thing is the technologies.

You know,

Iron Dome,

Israel developed it, share it with America.

Arrow missiles, they shoot these missiles from the sky way, way up in altitude, developed by Israel.

co-shared with America.

The same thing with

Trophy.

That's a system to protect your tanks.

So if somebody shoots anti-tank weapons at them, saves the tanks.

These are very important weapons on the battlefield.

That's defensive weapons.

What about offensive weapons?

Well, I can tell you we shared it with America, but I can't share it with you.

The most advanced offensive weapons on the planet, things that none of the superpowers have, developed by Israel, shared.

with America.

That's very important because you know you have to be strong.

Everybody understands that.

That's what President Trump says, and he says it correctly.

Peace through strength.

You got to be strong in order to get the peace.

So Israel helps with offensive and defensive technologies, but also Israel helps with Intel.

Did you hear what General Keegan said?

Familiar with the stand?

I'm not.

No?

Well, he said, you know,

the fact that Israel gave us the intelligence

saved so many lives that I'd need, he said,

five CIAs to give us what Israel gave us.

That valuable intelligence.

He was head of U.S.

Air Force intelligence.

It's true.

We share everything we know, and we've saved a lot of lives.

They try to shoot down planes with Americans in them.

ISIS, we gave intelligence to prevent that.

And so many other countless instances.

So offensive weapons, defensive weapons, intel.

And there's much more to come because we're developing very rapidly our arms and defensive industry and our intelligence services.

And what we have, you have.

So the second prong of the vice president's statement related to Israeli self-sufficiency.

So he was in that speech distinguishing between Ukraine and Israel.

And obviously, the United States has provided significant material aid and foreign aid to Israel in the middle of what is an existential war on seven fronts for the state of Israel.

What is the plan for Israeli self-sufficiency going forward?

It's a question a lot of Americans are asking.

That's not a question they're asking only.

It's the one that I'm committed to.

That is making Israel as fully self-sufficient as possible as we've made it in the economy.

You know, when I first became Prime Minister in 96, I went to the U.S.

Congress, a joint session, and I said,

Israel has come of age economically.

I shifted Israel to a free market economy.

We can support ourselves.

Thank you, America.

A deeply felt thank you for the economic aid you've given us.

We're going to phase it out.

We don't need it.

Now I'm telling you that we can achieve military self-sufficiency.

And that's a goal that we're doing, really, to transform the Israeli defense industry, just a quantum level jump, to be able to be self-sufficient, to share with America the extraordinary developments that we have, and they are absolutely extraordinary.

Again, I can't share that with you, but we will share it with the United States.

So Israel is the one fighting ally you have that is able to defend itself by itself, but also shares with you the products of

our technical capacities and sometimes technical and intelligence genius.

And we're happy to do it because we believe in America.

We think America is the hope of the world.

And we do whatever we can to strengthen our alliance.

And by the way, that's coming to an AI.

Let's talk for a moment about President Trump.

Obviously, President Trump is the most pro-Israel president in the history of the United States.

Bar none, they're no close competitors.

I wonder if you want to talk a little about the relationship that you personally have with President Trump, which is obviously in public quite warm.

Well, it's in private quite warm.

It doesn't mean that we agree on everything or at any one time we agree on every point.

That's what we have a conversation for.

You have that in your family?

A lot.

Yeah.

You want to see who wins out?

Your wife.

My wife, always.

Yes.

Well, in this case, it's not a husband and wife situation.

It's a question of partners.

We're the junior partner.

I mean, we have no, nobody should mistake that because right now the liberty of the world, the security of the world is dependent on the strength of the United States.

And I think what President Trump has done in a very short time is bring America back to the front seat, to the driver's seat in world affairs.

And that's very, very important

because

I think we all depend on America's strength, on its resolve.

And I think President Trump has made America great again.

I really believe that.

So, Mr.

Prime Minister, one of the things that you've talked about at length is the rising anti-Semitism around the world.

Obviously, we've seen a huge wave of it in Europe culminating in terror assaults and killings in places ranging from Paris to London, all over the continent.

You've seen an uptick in the United States, resulting in the murder of two Israeli embassy staffers, among others, in the United States.

A lot of people in the media, particularly the legacy media, are trying to attribute that to Israel.

Some try to attribute it to you as prime minister.

What do you attribute the rise in anti-Semitism to that we've seen over the course of the past couple of years in the West?

It's a cyclical phenomenon of historical waves that come and go.

And my father, who was a great student of history, a great historian,

actually told me that this is something that's going to come because he studied it for, you know, he studied a few thousand years of this.

It keeps coming and going.

Of course, people's sense of history in this current discourse goes back to breakfast, so they don't know.

They should even look back at breakfast.

You know when breakfast was?

October 7th, right?

That's two years ago before we had this war?

Okay.

What happened on that day?

You had massive crowds.

in the capitals of the West, including in the United States, in the cities of the United States, supporting Hamas,

supporting these rapists, these murderers, these beheaders of men and burners of babies.

And they were shouting for Hamas.

Remember that?

That was before Israel did anything.

We couldn't even get to the point where we defended ourselves.

It took us a while.

So it's not related to that.

It's related to an underlying

hatred of Jews that permeates the centuries, unfortunately.

And there are only two things that I'd say about it.

It's been a constant phenomenon of Jewish life over the millennia to have these horrible, horrible lies perpetrated about Jews, these vilifications.

We poison the wells, I don't know,

we drink the children, the blood of children, and all sorts of crazy things.

And that's repeated today.

That's not new.

And every time we had it in history, these vilifications were just preceded and were followed by horrible massacres.

and pogroms, culminating in the worst pogrom of them all, the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were basically burnt alive.

So what's new is that today we may not be able to fend off the vilifications, but we can fend off the physical attacks on us, as we've done since October 7th, and actually turn the tables and become victorious, even monumentally victorious, over our enemies.

That's what's changed.

But to the Jews in

America, to the Jews around the world, I say, and I say this forcefully, stand up.

Be proud of the fact that you belong to this incredible people who've resisted all the

horrors that

human nature can deal to other people.

We've stood it.

We've stood time.

We've stood these assaults.

Stand up and be proud and defend yourself against these vilifications.

Don't cower.

People respect those who respect themselves.

And we are an integral part of Western civilization.

Israel is an integral part of Western defense and American defense.

Stand up and be proud.

Don't bend.

So let's talk about where Israel is in the region now.

So obviously, in the wake of the last two years, as you've mentioned, when this war began, Israel was facing a serious threat on its northern border from Hezbollah, which is armed with up to 200,000 rockets and targeted missiles.

You had Iran, which was threatening full-scale attacks on Israel, which it attempted a couple of times over the course of the last couple of years.

You had attacks that were happening in the so-called West Bank, Judea, and Samaria.

You had, obviously, the threat of Hamas in the south.

You had had the Houthis in Yemen.

You had a multi-front war.

Two years later, Israel is essentially bestride large swaths of the Middle East.

It's the predominant military power in the region.

So a lot of people are asking what comes next, because there was a lot of hope before October 7th that the Abraham Accords were going to be expanded, that more nations were going to come in.

There was going to be a broadening of the relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors in the same way that President Trump was able to open that aperture up with regard to the UAE and Bahrain, for example.

What do you think comes next here?

I think we can expand the Ibrahim Accords.

I think we can have more peace agreements.

I think we can have them not only in the Middle East, but with the Islamic world beyond the Middle East.

And there are some important Islamic countries, countries with big Islamic majorities who are in touch with us.

But I think first you have to finish a job.

You have to finish the Gaza War, which I hope to do very soon, with President Trump's help.

Let's get it over with.

But we can't get it over with and leave Hamas there in power aiming its rockets at us.

That's not getting it over with.

Getting it over with, get all our hostages out, which is still before us.

We haven't yet done it, and I hope we do, but it's not yet done.

And then also, get Hamas out of power in Gaza.

Make Gaza

make sure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel or to the peace of the region and the world.

And I think that's possible.

If we do that, and I think we can, then I think we're going to expand peace a lot.

On the domestic Israeli front, there's been a lot of attention paid to the divisions inside Israel.

Well, prior to October 7th, obviously, there were riots in the streets or at least large protests in the streets with regard to judicial reform for a year prior to October 7th.

Those divisions, according to Yaakis Inward's own words, actually led to

what he thought of as an opening for October 7th to happen.

A lot of people are fearful who are friends of Israel about internal divisions reasserting themselves in the state.

What comes next internally?

What are the bridges that need to be built inside the state?

First, we have to identify a phenomenon that now permeates many states, and that is organized minorities, even very small minorities, that are mobilized with money, organization, NGOs that support them, and foreign governments that support them.

And they can amass a crowd on the street.

Even thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, but out of many millions, okay?

And wave the flags, wave their slogans, and you think the country is divided.

That's not true.

But it's happening in every, it's happening in America.

It's happening in Israel.

It's happening in Europe.

And it's usually, it happens typically against,

I would say, against non-leftist governments.

Somehow, leftist governments are exempt from this, you know.

So this is a targeted political attack, well orchestrated in many countries.

And you cut the funding and all this thing collapses.

And the funding is in the...

hundreds of millions of dollars in Israel for sure, maybe exceeding

more than that.

And so it creates an aura of total division and so on that is communicated.

And then the mainstream media explains, oh, the country is dereft.

You know,

I'm just a minority.

I'm sitting here alone.

I don't have any support.

I'm somehow hanging to power to stop

my trial that is ongoing.

Of course, people don't know that and can't be stopped.

All this nonsense, I mean, is put forward and people actually believe that there are these very strong divisions in Israel.

See, before the war, when I identified this, I said to our enemies, the Arab countries or the Hamas and other terror organizations and Iran, I said, don't make a mistake.

When the moment comes, we'll all stand together.

Everybody will come and we'll fight you.

And that's exactly what happened.

So democracies don't mean total unity.

They mean broad consensus, but not total consensus.

Otherwise, it doesn't mean anything.

And it also means that you're going to have this phenomenon of organized minorities, funded minorities

basically continue through the coming decades.

I think that's

a fact of life that we're going to have to overcome.

But I feel the great majority of Israelis are united in the goals we want.

We want to see hostages brought back.

We want to see Hamas thrown out of Gaza rule.

We want to make sure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.

We know we have to make Israel strong.

We know, and I know that most Israelis support overwhelmingly my goal of military self-sufficiency, just as they supported my goal of economic self-sufficiency.

And look what happened.

Look at Israel today.

It's a, you know,

we don't have, there's nothing that is left of this socialist past that we had that was ridiculous.

We were like a poor Eastern European communist country, and we're not there anymore because they accepted the idea of self-sufficiency, of living by our own means, of living by our ingenuity, innovation, enterprise.

Same thing is happening now with

the military side of our life.

We're going to be self-sufficient.

And that's going to be very good for Israel.

It's going to be very good for the United States because the fighting allies that it already has will be supplanted, also,

will be even stronger because it will not only take care of ourselves, but give our great friend, the United States,

the products of our...

of our ingenuity,

which America deserves.

America is

the great bastion of freedom and ingenuity and enterprise, and Israel is its final position in the Middle East.

Well, Mr.

Prime Minister, I really thank you for the time.

I know, obviously, you have a very busy day.

It's a busy week, and a lot is going on.

So I really appreciate it, especially the day before the anniversary, the second anniversary of October 7th.

It's a very somber time here in Israel, although we are going into a Jewish holiday.

And so I really...

It's an important Jewish holiday, and Jews around the world have my warmest greetings for it.

But it's also the October 7th massacre.

We want to see our hostages home and we're close to it and I hope we get there.

We're not there yet.

But the other thing is that I think that we can all acknowledge and in some ways also celebrate the fact that we rose from the ashes again and again became, you know, from the pit of despair.

We've become again the dominant power in the Middle East, perhaps stronger, much stronger than we were before.

That's something I think that we can give thanks for.

Well, thank you, Mr.

Prime Minister, once again.

Thank you.