(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Tuesday, 11 December 2018), at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, addressed a conference of Israeli ambassadors to North America, Europe, international organizations, the Middle East and Eurasia. Following are excerpts from his remarks:
"The exposure of Hezbollah's terrorist tunnels on the northern border is part of an effort, which is not just military, to block the tunnels threat. But it is also a public diplomacy, economic and diplomatic effort to impose increased sanctions on Hezbollah, to designate all subdivisions of Hezbollah as one organization. It is also necessary to increase sanctions on Iran, which is behind this organization and is also behind Hamas's similar attempts.
These matters will find expression in the UN Security Council in the coming days, but it is much more than that. You need to go country by country, foreign ministry by foreign ministry, government by government, and tell them: Take a stand here against Hezbollah. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. Hezbollah flagrantly violated our sovereignty. Hezbollah is violating UN Security Council Resolution #1701. This is your time to act.
We have prevented dozens of catastrophic, not minor, attacks around the world. Nobody has intelligence like we do, and all countries need it. It is a combination of Israel's technological and intelligence-security abilities."
Prime Minister Netanyahu added:
"When I was in Oman, I spoke with Sultan Qaboos who confirmed for me that El Al would be able to overfly Oman.
When I meet with Arab leaders they tell me 'We have security and economic interests and we also want to enjoy the fruits of progress and we will no longer mortgage our normalization with the State of Israel to the Palestinians' caprices.'
This does not mean peace agreements yet, but it certainly says that a situation could be created in which our progress toward normalization and peace, instead of what we always thought, peace with the Palestinians [in order] to [make peace with] the Arab world, could actually be the reverse.
I will not mortgage peace with the Arab world on peace with the Palestinians. We are trying, and we will yet try, but one does not determine the other. It would be good if there was an agreement with the Palestinians, but it cannot be the condition. We are not conditioning our cohesion with the Arab world – normalization, on peace with the Palestinians."