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Netanyahu: European leaders say one thing to me in private and another in public

“What they tell me behind closed doors, as opposed to meetings when other people are there, is reflective of a completely different interaction.”

By World Israel News Staff

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that European leaders had positive things to say in private meetings held recently, while saying other things in public.

“When I meet the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, and Italy — which I did recently — what they tell me behind closed doors, as opposed to meetings when other people are there, reflects a completely different interaction,” he said in a televised speech Monday night.

Netanyahu cited two main topics that European leaders spoke about very differently in public and in private: the two-state solution, which, he said, “everyone has to [publicly] say they believe in,” and the judicial reform.

In his speech, which addressed the ongoing terror wave, Netanyahu said the country was “under terrorist assault” that began with under the Lapid-Bennett government.

“Under the previous government, the number of terrorist attacks doubled. The previous government signed an agreement with Hezbollah in which it handed over our gas territories and gas reservoirs to the enemy without anything in return. It assured us that this surrender agreement would distance the confrontations with the terrorist organizations,” Netanyahu said.

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He went on to blame Opposition Leader Yair Lapid and the anti-government movement resulting from opposition to the judicial reform for “weakening our national resilience.”

“Our enemy hears and sees everything and they believe that they will be able to attack us with combined terrorist attacks from Lebanon, Syria and Gaza,” he said.

He also dismissed a poll released Sunday that showed his rightwing coalition dropping from 64 seats in the Knesset to 46 seats were elections held today.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “This government will serve for four years. The determining factor, in the end, will be the way we handle security, the economy, health, education, peace.”