Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is willing to “give peace a chance” — but “the way you buy peace is through force,” he told “CBS Mornings” co-host Tony Dokoupil in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.
Netanyahu spoke to CBS News days after Hamas released the last 20 living hostages taken on October 7, 2023 and the Israeli military withdrew from parts of the Gaza Strip, in the first phase of a peace plan brokered by President Trump and Arab states. He discussed the future of Gaza, Israel’s reaction if Hamas does not disarm and the criticism Israel has faced during the war.
Here are the highlights:
Could Netanyahu regret freeing nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli hostages?
Netanyahu took a longer view when Dokoupil, referring to the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees and prisoners in exchange for living and deceased Israeli hostages, asked him: “Are you going to regret this decision?”
He responded that now Israel is in a “much better position” to pursue Hamas if it does not respect the peace plan, because there are no longer 20 Israeli hostages “with their heads on the chopping block.”
Dokoupil noted that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack, was released in an exchange with Israel in 2011.
Netanyahu acknowledged that the decision to release thousands of people – including 250 were serving life sentences in Israeli prisons – was “very painful”.
“It’s true that we didn’t release the worst of them, but that’s little comfort if your son or daughter was murdered by one of those people who were released,” he said.
The release of Palestinian prisoners came with the knowledge that “there is a huge price to pay for Israel’s commitment to bringing back our hostages or captives held by the enemy,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu says civilian-to-combatant ratio killed in Gaza is ‘less than 2 to 1’
Asked by Dokoupil about criticism that he was “negligent with civilian life in Gaza” and whether his tally of civilian deaths differed from that of the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, Netanyahu estimated that “20,000 Hamas terrorists” had been killed by Israel.
He added that this was the figure “if you take away the people who die anyway from illness or old age.”
Netanyahu argued: “Disregarding double counting, the ratio is less than 2 to 1, which is incredible in an urban conflict. ” It’s a figure he also cited at the United Nations General Assembly in September, telling world leaders: “The ratio of non-combatant casualties to combatants is less than 2 to 1 in Gaza. »
Gaza’s health ministry says nearly 70,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, 2023. Its figures do not differentiate between civilians and fighters. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, an estimated 11,000 Gazans are also still missing, presumed buried under rubble.
Mr. Trump told reporters on Sunday that he estimated about 60,000 people had died in Gaza.
Netanyahu says ending war ‘as quickly as possible’ is ‘first solution’ to combating young Americans’ negative views of Israel
Netanyahu cited the length of the war as one of the reasons why Americans have an increasingly negative view of Israel. A A Pew poll taken in late September found that only 35% of respondents had a positive opinion of the Israeli government, down from 47% in 2022, before the war began. Among Americans under 30, only 13 percent said the United States provides “about the right amount of aid to Israel.”
“The first solution is to end the war as quickly as possible, which is what I have sought to do against all this counter-current propaganda,” he said.
Netanyahu also accused social media of fueling outrage against Israel, saying “lies” about the nation “obviously do damage.”
“In the age of TikTok and the age of television…letting wars go on too long is going to cost you exactly what it costs you.” But he added: “It can be restored at least in part when you finish the war and move on to what I hope will be the era of peace.”
Netanyahu on Trump saying he’s difficult to work with: ‘I’m very tough’
In a speech to the Knesset on Monday, Trump said Netanyahu was “not the easiest man to deal with, but that’s what makes him great.”
Netanyahu seemed proud of this characterization.
“I hope he will say that, because I am very tough on issues that concern the future of my country,” he told Dokoupil. “My job is to protect the Jewish state and secure the future of the Jewish people.”
Netanyahu says Hamas must disarm or ‘all hell will break loose’
“We agreed to give peace a chance,” Netanyahu said. But he also argued that the conditions of Mr. Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza are “very clear”: “Hamas must lay down its weapons and demilitarize, otherwise ‘all hell breaks loose.’
Mr. Trump warned that if Hamas does not disarm, “we will disarm it.”
“And it will happen quickly and perhaps violently,” the president said. “But they will disarm.”
Netanyahu told Dokoupil: “I hope we can do this peacefully. We are certainly ready to do that. »
How will the Gaza Strip be governed?
A major unresolved question is who will control the Gaza Strip as Israeli forces withdraw.
That of Mr. Trump peace plan calls for control of the territory to be handed over to a technocratic committee made up of Palestinians, overseen by a “Peace Council” that includes Mr. Trump and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Hamas is not supposed to play any role in governance. But beyond that, it’s unclear.
Netanyahu said the exact structure of how the territory will be managed is not yet defined.
When Dokoupil asked whether Blair would rule Gaza himself, Netanyahu replied: “I doubt it.”
“But I think this is a period of transition and we want to shape governance that works, that is not made up of people committed to our destruction,” he said. “We do not want the massacre of October 7 to happen again.”
Netanyahu has ruled out allowing an independent Palestinian state, a solution advocated by U.S. allies in Europe and the Arab world.
He told Dokoupil that he supported Palestinians having the power to govern themselves, but would not support a Palestinian state with “military power.” “This sovereign security power must remain in the hands of Israel,” continued the Prime Minister.
The Israeli leader said the path forward should involve deradicalization and changes to the Palestinian education system. He also noted that many Gazans are opposed to Hamas or hold the group responsible for inflicting “horrific misery” on them.
“The most important thing to destroy fanaticism is to destroy a certain hope, the hope that fanaticism will achieve its results,” Netanyahu said. “When people know that Israel is here to stay, you are not going to destroy the Jewish state, Israel is too strong, it sets the stage for a change of heart.”
