Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently appeared before his nation and spoke on the recent Hamas terror attacks on Israeli civilians and military targets, saying that the Hamas terrorists that launched the attack are the same as ISIS and will be treated as such by Israel.
Making that point in a warlike and steel-spined speech, which was posted to Facebook, Netanyahu said, “We always knew who Hamas was. Now the whole world knows. Hamas is Daesh, and we will treat it exactly as the civilized world treated Daesh.”
Netanyahu maintained a similar attitude in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that included a clip of his speech. In it, he said, quoting the portion of the speech included in the tweet, “Israel is at war. We didn’t want this war. It was forced upon us in the most brutal and savage way. But though Israel didn’t start this war, Israel will finish it.”
Continuing, he said, “Once, the Jewish people were stateless. Once, the Jewish people were defenseless. No longer. Hamas will understand that by attacking us, they have made a mistake of historic proportions. We will exact a price that will be remembered by them and Israel’s other enemies for decades to come.”
He then recounted some of the horrific incidents seen during the attacks, saying, “The savage attacks that Hamas perpetrated against innocent Israelis are mindboggling: slaughtering families in their homes, massacring hundreds of young people at an outdoor festival, kidnapping scores of women, children and elderly, even Holocaust survivors.”
He added, “Hamas terrorists bound, burned and executed children. They are savages. Hamas is ISIS. And just as the forces of civilization united to defeat ISIS, the forces of civilization must support Israel in defeating Hamas.”
He then thanked Biden and the other world leaders who are supporting Israel, saying, “I want to thank President Biden for his unequivocal support. I want to thank leaders across the world who are standing with Israel today. I want to thank the people and Congress of the United States of America.”
Returning to the point made in his comment on Hamas being like ISIS, he then finished the tweet by saying, “In fighting Hamas, Israel is not only fighting for its own people. It is fighting for every country that stands against barbarism. Israel will win this war, and when Israel wins, the entire civilized world wins.”
Watch him here:
Notably, Netanyahu did not mention Iran at all during his speech, despite many in the West and in Israel arguing that Iran is likely involved in the matter to some extent. Why he did not mention Iran or its likely involvement is unclear, but could stem from a desire on his and his country’s part to keep Iran’s Hezbollah ally from sweeping onto Israel from Lebanon and joining Hamas’ attack. Fighting off Hezbollah would make the war significantly more difficult for Israel and is so something PM Netanyahu is likely looking to avoid.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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