Netanyahu: ‘Israel pulled off the greatest comeback in history’

Commenting on U.S. President Donald Trump’s willingness to sell F-35s to Turkey, Netanyahu said he has discussed the issue with the president and expressed his opposition to providing the advanced fighters to Ankara.

By David Isaac, JNS

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Sid Rosenberg, host of 77 WABC radio’s “Sid & Friends in the Morning,” that he was in “tatters” over the sudden death of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

In the Monday interview, Netanyahu expressed shock at Graham’s sudden death, saying he had spoken to the senator only a few days earlier about how best to finish off the surviving remnant of the Islamist regime in Iran, and move to a “broader peace, which he very much believed in and devoted his life to.”

The prime minister said Graham was a “staunch supporter of Israel,” who “understood that the security of Israel and America are intertwined.”

“Israel’s strength is America’s strength. He understood that. And he followed through on that also in the senate,” said the prime minister.

“He actually often said to me, ‘You’re not getting enough aid.’ And I, said, ‘Well, Lindsey, I think we are.’ He said, ‘No, I’m going to up it and don’t interfere.’”

Asked by Rosenberg if he is satisfied with Israel’s position vis-à-vis Hezbollah and Iran, Netanyahu argued that since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, Israel has seen the “greatest comeback in history.”

“Hamas tortured our people, raped and then murdered our women, burned our babies alive. … People thought that this is the end of Israel,” he said.

“And that was Iran’s plan, to use its proxies for simultaneous invasions and to to carpet bomb us with ballistic missiles and rockets. It didn’t work out that way, because when you see where we are three years later, Iran has been itself hurt very badly by our joint operations—America and Israel.”

Hamas is “a shadow of its former self; Hezbollah’s leadership is decimated—its missile arsenal, which numbered 150,000, reduced to a mere 8% of its former capacity; Syria’s Assad regime is no more; half of Yemen’s Houthi leadership has been “knocked out,” he said.

The Iran terror axis has been shattered. “Parts of it are still there, still present, but it’s nowhere near where it was before,” Netanyahu said.

Commenting on U.S. President Donald Trump’s willingness to sell F-35s to Turkey, Netanyahu said he has discussed the issue with the president and expressed his opposition to providing the advanced fighters to Ankara.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his senior officials have made hostile statements about Israel, supported Hamas and pursued expansionist ambitions reminiscent of the Ottoman Empire, he said, also citing Turkey’s military occupation of northern Cyprus and its tensions with Greece.

As Netanyahu plans to address the U.N. General Assembly in September, Rosenberg inquired whether he was “nervous” about coming to Manhattan, the seat of the United Nations, given New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s threats to arrest him for war crimes.

Netanyahu said he wasn’t worried and advised Mamdani to rethink which side he’s on, noting that he condemns Israel, the only democracy that fights “shoulder to shoulder” with America, while praising Hamas, which calls for death to every Jew on the planet.

“He’s with the terror axis. And I think the problem is, you know, that he doesn’t recognize that those who hate the Jews and Israel ultimately hate America. And in fact, I think secretly he hates America,” said Netanyahu.