Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he wants to “give peace a chance” now that Hamas’ final hostages have been released from Gaza — though he refused to commit to a two-state solution that included weapons for Palestinians.
Netanyahu told “CBS Mornings” anchor Tony Dokoupil in a Tuesday interview that he viewed the first part of concluding the two-year war as the release of the 20 living hostages, and only while Israel’s military remained in the Gaza Strip. The hostages were released on Monday, as were about 1,900 Palestinian detainees, signaling the end of a war that started with the murder of about 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent killing of roughly 67,000 Palestinians.
The second part, Netanyahu said, was the demilitarization and disarmament of Hamas, the governing body of the enclave. That included making sure Hamas gave up its weapons and the confirmation of no weapons factories in the area, he noted.
“We also agreed: Okay, let’s get the first part done. Now let’s give a chance to do the second part peacefully, which is my hope,” Netanyahu said.
But Netanyahu said the success of either part would not lead, in his view, to the two-state solution backed by many of the world’s governments and the United Nations. He agreed that Palestinians should “have all the powers in a peaceful day to govern themselves,” but that such sovereignty would not include any military capabilities.
“They can’t have the powers to threaten our survival,” he said. “That sovereign power of security must remain with Israel. Otherwise, the jihadists take over. Iran takes over immediately. And that’s what happened every time we vacated territory — the most extreme fanatics came in.”
As for who will govern it, he said, that remains to be seen. “I think that this is a transitional period and we want to fashion, you know, a governance that works — that is not made of people who are committed to our destruction,” he said. “Because if we … if we put them there, then we just repeat it again and again and again. And we don’t want to have the Oct. 7 massacre repeated.”
Netanyahu also said he believed it was possible to fix the perception of young Americans across the political spectrum that sided with Palestinians over the Israeli government if they “finish the war as speedily as possible,” something he said he has attempted to do against what he called “contrarian propaganda.”
“Of course I want to end the war,” he said. “Who wants it to continue? You know, I’ve been to war myself, I’ve been in battles … you have to be crazy to want wars to prolong.”
