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Netanyahu transcript: « We have to be more powerful than the barbarians, or they will crash our gates, destroy our societies »
‘History proves that, unfortunately and unhappily, Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan,’ says PM in his first English presser of the war, arguing that US and Israel had to ‘act now’ against Iran’s regime
The following is a transcript of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s first English-language press conference since the start of the Iran war, held in Jerusalem on March 19, 2026.
Netanyahu began with brief remarks in Hebrew in which he stated that, after 20 days of the campaign, “Iran today has no ability to enrich uranium, and no ability to produce ballistic missiles,” a claim he did not repeat in the English statement and question and answer session that followed. (Note: Some of the questions put to Netanyahu were not clearly audible.)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Welcome to the foreign press. First of all, I just want to say: I’m alive, and you’re all witnesses. Now that I dispatched this piece of fake news, I want to give you an update on Operation Roaring Lion.
Under President Trump’s visionary leadership, America and Israel are acting together in Iran with great determination and unprecedented strength. Operation [Roaring] Lion is designed to remove the existential threats posed by the Ayatollah regime, the regime that has waged war against America and Israel and the people of Iran for 47 years. It chants, “Death to America, death to Israel.” And it delivers death to its own people.
Our goals are three. One, removing the nuclear threat. Second, removing the ballistic missile threat, and removing both of these threats before they’re buried deep underground and become immune from aerial attack. And third, this means creating the conditions for the Iranian people to grasp their freedom, to control their destiny.
Today, the Ayatollah regime is not only attacking America, is not only attacking Israel, not only attacking the Iranian people, it is attacking the entire Middle East and beyond. They’ve attacked civilians and Americans and American assets in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Oman, and they’ve even attacked, through their proxies, Cyprus and Europe.
The regime has waged war against America and Israel and the people of Iran for 47 years
We’ve warned for decades that their ballistic missile program would be used to attack these targets far and wide, and if they’re not stopped, that’s just the beginning. The death cult in Iran is trying to blackmail the world by closing a key international maritime route, the Straits of Hormuz. It won’t work. Israel is helping in its own way, in intel and other means, the American effort to open the Straits of Hormuz.
But I want to ask you to imagine how the Ayatollah regime would be able to blackmail the entire world if they had ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. Just imagine what they would do. Look at what they’re doing now and imagine what they would do if they had ballistic missiles, international-range ballistic missiles, and nuclear-tipped warheads. Just imagine what a great threat that would be.