Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decries antisemitic attack in Washington, DC, warns Western leaders against empowering Hamas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Thursday evening, issued statement following the fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy employees in Washington, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim.
“Last night in Washington, something horrific happened,” Netanyahu said. “A brutal terrorist shot in cold blood a young beautiful couple – Yaron Lischinsky and Sara Milgrim. Yaron had just bought an engagement ring for Sarah. He was planning to give it to her in Jerusalem next week. They were planning to start a new and happy life together. Well, that tragically did not happen.”
Netanyahu stressed that the victims “weren’t the victims of a random crime,” adding, “The terrorist who cruelly gunned them down did so for one reason and one reason alone – he wanted to kill Jews. And as he was taken away, he chanted, ‘Free Palestine!’
“This is exactly the same chant we heard on October 7th,” Netanyahu stated. “On that day, thousands of terrorists stormed into Israel from Gaza. They beheaded men. They raped women. They burned babies alive. They butchered 1,200 innocent people and took 251 innocent people hostage to the dungeons of Gaza.”
Referring to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s reaction to October 7th, Netanyahu said, “A short time afterwards, Chancellor Scholz of Germany visited Israel. And after he saw the horrors, he said to me, ‘These Hamas terrorists are exactly like the Nazis.’”
He continued: “He was right. And if they could get away with it, these Hamas terrorists would have slaughtered every last Jew on earth. For these neo-Nazis, ‘Free Palestine’ is just today’s version of ‘Heil Hitler.’”
Netanyahu declared, “They don’t want a Palestinian state. They want to destroy the Jewish state. They want to annihilate the Jewish people, who have been in the Land of Israel for 3,500 years.”
“I could never understand how this simple truth evades the leaders of France, Britain, Canada, and others,” he said. “They are now proposing to establish a Palestinian state and reward these murderers with the ultimate prize.”
“Well, for 18 years, we had a de facto Palestinian state. It’s called Gaza. And what did we get? Peace? No. We got the most savage slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.”
“You won’t be surprised to learn that Hamas thanked President Macron and Prime Ministers Starmer and Carney for demanding that Israel end its war in Gaza immediately,” Netanyahu said. “Hamas was right to thank them.”
“Because by issuing their demand – replete with a threat of sanctions against Israel, against Israel, not Hamas – these three leaders effectively said they want Hamas to remain in power,” he added. “They want Israel to stand down and accept that Hamas’s army of mass murderers will survive, rebuild and repeat the October 7th massacre again and again and again because that’s what Hamas has vowed to do.”
“I say to President Macron, Prime Minister Carney and Prime Minister Starmer: When mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers thank you, you’re on the wrong side of justice. You’re on the wrong side of humanity and you’re on the wrong side of history.”
“These leaders may think that they’re advancing peace. They’re not. They’re emboldening Hamas to continue fighting forever,” Netanyahu asserted. “And they give them hope to establish a second Palestinian state from which Hamas will again seek to destroy the Jewish state.”
“And mind you, it’s not going to be a state free of Hamas,” he added. “When you establish a Palestinian state, we’ve seen it, the radicals take over. Iran sends them in and they take over. So don’t give us this talk, ‘It’ll be a peaceful Palestinian state’. It won’t be.”
Netanyahu also addressed accusations regarding humanitarian conditions in Gaza. “The hypocrisy doesn’t stop there,” he said. “These and other leaders have bought into Hamas’s propaganda that says Israel is starving Palestinian children.”
“And not only is Hamas putting out this lie,” he continued. “A few days ago, a top UN official said that 14,000 Palestinian babies would die in 48 hours. You see many international institutions are complicit in spreading this lie.”
“The press repeats it. The mob believed it. And a young couple is then brutally gunned down in Washington,” Netanyahu concluded.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke with US President Donald Trump, who expressed “deep sorrow over the shocking murder in Washington of two Israeli Embassy employees: Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, of blessed memory.”
Netanyahu thanked President Trump “for the efforts he and his administration are making against displays of antisemitism in the US.”
The two leaders also discussed the war in Gaza, with President Trump expressing his support for the “objectives set by Prime Minister Netanyahu for releasing the hostages, bringing about the elimination of Hamas and advancing the Trump plan.”
The Prime Minister and President Trump “agreed on the need to ensure that Iran will not obtain nuclear weapons.”
