‘You’re next’ if Israel does not defeat Hamas, Netanyahu says

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Monday that America and Europe will be the next targets, as he made his case for total destruction of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. 

“If we don’t win now, then Europe is next and you’re next,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity. “We have to win.”

Netanyahu painted the situation as a battle between good and evil, invoking the Dark Ages when describing the “barbarism” of Hamas on Oct. 7, when the group launched a surprise attack on the southern border of Israel, brutally killing 1,200 Israelis and taking about 240 hostages.

“Who’s going to win? Are the good guys going to win or the bad guys are going to win? And, of course, we have to make sure that the forces of good, the forces of peace, the forces of progress and prosperity, they win, and not the forces that take us back to the Dark Ages. That’s the battle,” he said. 

Netanyahu recalled how the U.S.-designated terror organization ISIS launched its attacks across the globe, sending Americans into a constant state of fear as reports of terrorist attacks emerged frequently and seemingly at random. 

“It will affect every single person, not only in the Middle East, but well beyond, because, if Israel is in peril, if the Middle East goes down, Europe is next. It’s like ISIS. You know, people thought it was a local thing. It wasn’t. It was a global thing. And it affected Americans. It beheaded Americans.”

Netanyahu’s remarks come as public sentiment in the United States and around the world has shifted toward calling for a cease-fire, and incidents reported of antisemitism have been on the rise.  

Netanyahu began the interview thanking the American government and its people for standing with Israel and thanked President Biden later on for his ardent support, dismissing concerns that he is shifting away from that position.

Echoing a sentiment in the famous poem about the Holocaust, “First they came,” Netanyahu warned Americans not to grow apathetic. 

“What the antisemites don’t realize is, the attacks start with the Jews — on the Jews, but they never end there,” he said. “That’s what happened in the Holocaust. People said, oh, well, the attacks of the Nazis on the Jews before World War II, or even the beginning, that’s OK.”

“No, it wasn’t, because it afflicted all of humanity, all of civilization,” he continued. “And that’s what you have here too. The reason they’re attacking Israel is, this axis of terror understands that we’re the forward position of the West and of civilization. We’re just a stumbling block on the way to you.”