Netanyahu: ‘If Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand alone’

No pressure from the international community will stop Israel from defending itself. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this.

Netanyahu once again made Israel’s fighting prowess clear during a Holocaust memorial ceremony at the Yad Vashem monument in Jerusalem.

“I tell world leaders that no pressure, no decision by any international body, will prevent Israel from defending itself,” Netanyahu said. “If Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.” That is clear language in the face of the increasing number of countries denouncing the increasing toll of the war in Gaza. On Sunday evening, 16 people were killed in Israeli bombardments in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip.

Negotiations on a ceasefire in Gaza failed to produce any results last weekend. The talks took place in Cairo and were expected to restart on Tuesday. The extremist Palestinian movement Hamas is prepared to release Israeli hostages, but is demanding a permanent ceasefire. Israel has no intention of withdrawing from the war until Hamas is completely disarmed and dismantled.

Netanyahu also denounced the “terrible volcano of anti-Semitism being unleashed against Israel around the world” over its war in Gaza. Netanyahu compared the demonstrations at universities around the world, especially in the United States, to the discrimination Jews suffered at German universities during World War II.

“What a perversion of justice and history,” he said. ‘The criticism is not because of our actions, but because we exist… because we are Jews. Today we once again face enemies determined to destroy us.”