WarSclerotic

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to New York next week and address the U.N. General Assembly. Netanyahu will highlight the dangers the world would face if terrorist groups or Iran obtained nuclear weapons. In a Rosh Hashana interview with Israel Hayom (the full interview will be published in Israel Hayom’s English newsletter on Wednesday), Netanyahu said, “This is a global danger. I think my duty as the prime minister of Israel is to explain that the threat we face is a threat to the entire world.”

Netanyahu also compared Israel’s current security situation to what it was before Operation Protective Edge. “We are in a better situation, but face a worse reality. The reality developing around us, in which radical Islam is advancing on all fronts, is a reality that challenges us and challenges the world. One of my duties as prime minister to make clear to the world that our war against these Islamic groups and countries, first and foremost the Islamic Republic of Iran, is also their war.”

“What is taking place between Iran and the Islamic State group is not a contradiction of caliphate ideology. One simply wants a caliphate and the other wants the rule of the Mahdi. What’s the big difference? These are just theological subtleties. Both, like all radical Islamic leaders, desire to first take over who is next to them and then later the entire world. The danger of groups with crazy ideologies is that they could get weapons of mass destruction.”

Netanyahu said he is concerned about the emerging nuclear agreement between world powers and Iran. “There are signs the powers will agree to accept Iran as a nuclear threshold state.”

Regarding Operation Protective Edge, Netanyahu said, “I decided the best way to deal with the array of problems was to deal a severe blow to Hamas in Gaza, but not to get drawn in there. Otherwise, the campaign would not have been 50 days, but rather 500 days, with very heavy prices, not just in human life.

“I’m happy our people demonstrated public resilience, strength and heroism,” Netanyahu said. “Our young generation, IDF soldiers, proved it is a great generation, a generation of heroes.”

During his trip, Netanyahu will meet with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington. On Monday, the White House announced the meeting would take place on October 1.