Netanyahu: "This Is What I Agreed Upon with Trump"

At the opening of his remarks at the Knesset plenum, Netanyahu said, "Last week I made an important diplomatic visit to the United States. From visit to visit, we are strengthening the partnership between our two countries. The strong alliance is a recipe for continuing our chain of achievements in 2026 as well. We discussed extensively the need to return the last hostage from Gaza, Israeli hero Ran Gvili. I promised the wonderful Gvili family that we will not relent from the sacred mission to bring Ran home."

"As for Iran "which pulls the strings of terror in the Middle East, President Trump and I expressed a firm position – we will not allow Iran to rebuild its ballistic missile industry or renew the nuclear program that we severely damaged in Operation Rising Lion. Our position is zero enrichment capacity, removal of all enriched uranium outside of Iran, and continuous monitoring of nuclear facilities."

Netanyahu added: "We in Israel identify with the struggle of the Iranian people and their aspiration for freedom and justice. It is very likely that we are standing at a decisive moment, in which the Iranian people will take their fate into their own hands ... Israel supports the bold action of the US military in Venezuela. There is a global struggle here between countries that advocate for the values of freedom and progress versus violent countries that threaten the world order."

When the opposition erupted and began shouting in the plenum, Netanyahu chose to jab at opposition leader Yair Lapid, who barely passes the electoral threshold in many polls: "Write down the volume of your faction members' shouting, because there's tough competition among you for the first four spots on the party list."

"If we had listened to you," Netanyahu turned again to the opposition wing and said, "there would still be hostages in Gaza. Deif would be alive, Sinwar would be alive, Nasrallah would be alive, and Iran would be racing toward nuclear weapons."

Regarding the economy, Netanyahu said: "Reality proves that we are balanced, determined, and powerful, while you in your defeatism, in your opposition to every decision, you are the extremists who harm our cohesion. You prophesied doom about the state of the economy. The war indeed challenged us, but I always said that when we win, the economy will grow enormously, and that's what's happening now. The British weekly, The Economist, ranks Israel's economy among the top 3 economies in the world."

He further added: "After two years of war, the shekel has strengthened significantly, the stock market has surged by tens of percent in the last year, unemployment is at a low, high-tech investments have returned with force, housing prices have dropped for the first time in years. We signed a huge gas deal with Egypt that will bring 60 billion shekels into the state coffers."

Netanyahu said regarding the conscription law: "You are taking an extreme, narrow, and divisive position, while we are seeking broad consensus. We are advancing a historic framework that will lead to the conscription of 23,000 Haredim in the next three and a half years. This is a real revolution, with an enormous number of recruits. The law we formulated establishes personal and institutional sanctions, and I believe there will be no need for them because the Haredi public will meet the recruitment targets we set."

He further said: "We increased the number of recruits fourfold. Which law is better, your evasion law or our conscription law? Our law serves the state and your law serves you politically. You are not interested in conscripting Haredim, you want to throw obstacles at the historic law we are bringing. Your fear is that we will succeed, that the conscription law will pass and that tens of thousands of Haredim will enlist in the IDF."

Netanyahu added: "You are the government of the white page, the white flag, and I will reveal another open secret. You are the extremist opposition, you are not interested at all in conscripting Haredim, you only want to throw obstacles at the historic law we are bringing in order to topple the government, and your greatest fear is that we will succeed and the conscription law will pass and tens of thousands of Haredim will enlist in the IDF. You are afraid, we want to recruit the Haredi public and you want to recruit them for your election campaign, the painful wound we've had for seventy years."

Commission of Inquiry

Regarding the commission of inquiry, the PM said: "You oppose establishing a commission of inquiry by consensus and you know very well that there will not be broad trust in a commission of inquiry that half the people don't believe in, and a large part of the public thinks that if there is a commission appointed by judges who belong to one camp, it won't be equal. Our proposal is to make an equal commission, not a left or right commission, it will be bipartisan, like the commission established in the US after 9/11, that's how it should be with us too."

Netanyahu continued to attack the opposition: "Stop speaking in the name of the Zionist majority," and here he turned to Mansour Abbas who shouted "You wanted to rely on me" and said to the opposition: "You who relied on Yair Golan and Abbas are really not Zionists. I didn't do that and I could have formed a government with the Arabs and didn't, and that's the whole difference between me and you."

Netanyahu turned to Lapid: "You need to increase the number of your protesters, because if it's four, it simply won't work. I want to hear that you won't form a government with a party that continues the Muslim Brotherhood. You have no way to form a government without the Arabs. Unlike others, I don't disqualify people's right to choose, but you do need to tell the coalitional truth, and you intend to form a government with the Muslim Brotherhood, just as Bennett tries to hide the fact that he wanted to legislate an evasion law. And this evening he will speak about his plan, but when he had the opportunity to legislate a law when he didn't have a single Haredi in his coalition, he didn't do it."