Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel does not need to ask permission from the US to go to war. He argued Israel was an independent country, but failed to mention the massive military aid that the US gives to Tel Aviv.
“If you attack us, we attack you immediately back. But if you prepare an attack, we go and wipe you out. We just did in Gaza, as we do in Lebanon,” Netanyahu told Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) in an interview published on Monday. “We’re not asking permission from our American friends. We just tell them that’s what we’re doing, and that’s fine.”
He made the remarks amid reports that President Donald Trump has sent a string of high-level officials to Tel Aviv to prevent Netanyahu from breaking the ceasefire with Hamas. The practice has been dubbed “Bibi-sitting.”
Netanyahu told JNS that he was prepared to go back to war in Gaza if Hamas does not disarm. “We’re willing to give it a try, but if not, as President Trump has said, it’s going to be done one of two ways,” the Israeli leader said. “Either the easy way, with the international force, or the hard way, with Israel, and it’ll be done.”
He added, “If we don’t finish off Hamas, it’ll cast a shadow for sure. So we intend to finish them off.”
Ynet reports that Tel Aviv is currently waiting for a green light from Washington to expand the territory it controls in Gaza past the “yellow line.” Netanyahu claims that Hamas is violating the ceasefire deal by not returning more bodies of Israeli hostages who died in Gaza during the two-year onslaught.
The Israeli leader claimed that he accepted the hostage agreement because it was the right deal at the right time. However, an Israeli official involved in previous negotiations said Hamas offered a similar deal in 2024.
“What we should also know is that this deal could have been done a long time ago. Hamas agreed to all the same terms in September 2024, as outlined in the ‘Three Weeks Deal’ that I had received in both written and voice messages, in Arabic and English,” Gershon Baskin wrote in The Times of Israel.
Netanyahu went on to argue that Israel and the US are independent countries engaged in a partnership. However, Israel is dependent on US military aid and support to wage wars. Netanyahu went to war with Iran in June, knowing he would have to draw the US into the conflict to destroy key nuclear sites.
Netanyahu told JNS that Israel was the “anchor of security in the Middle East.” He added, “If Israel weren’t here—a stronger Israel wasn’t here—there wouldn’t be a Middle East. It would collapse under Iran in two seconds, and they know that.”
