Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to the JNS International Policy Summit in Jerusalem, giving what sounds like a victory speech, saying the U.S. and Israel succeeded at “shattering Iran’s terror axis” and “created the conditions for the future fall” of the Islamic Republic “We prevented Iran from carrying out a plan to annihilate us,” he said. “Had we not acted… Iran would have had atomic bombs. And let me tell you something — they would have used them. That’s what we prevented.” Here is Netanyahu’s full speech on Sunday: His full comments:

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Today I want to begin with a simple question: What have we achieved? Because these same people and their cronies in the press are trying to diminish our achievements. In fact, they’re trying to erase them completely. So what is it that we achieved? Here’s what we achieved: We prevented Iran from carrying out a plan to annihilate us. And today, they would have had a nuclear weapon, an atomic bomb to do so. We prevented that from happening. We removed an existential danger. And had we not acted, had we not acted in Operation Rising Lion and then in Operation Roaring Lion, Iran would have had atomic bombs. And let me tell you something: They would have used them. That’s what we prevented. Together with our American friends, the American Air Force, the American military, we carried out the largest air strike in our history. We destroyed Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. We knocked out 20 of their top nuclear scientists, and when you take out the scientists, it’s very hard to make a nuclear weapon. We decapitated the leadership of the terror regime. We shattered their missile industry. We knocked out their navy. We knocked out their air force. We attacked their military industries. We attacked their bridges. We attacked so many targets that the cumulative damage that we did to the IRGC economy is not counted in the millions, it’s counted in hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars, and it will take them a long time to recover. And they may not recover, because once you deal these blows, and once the rift between the regime and the people is so deep, you cannot tell when such a regime will fall. And I think we created the conditions for its future fall. That is what will be the real triumph: when the Iranian people take their own destiny in their hands and they knock out this brutal regime that is terrorizing them and terrorizing the rest of the world. But we didn’t just confront Iran. We shattered Iran’s terror axis. We took out Sinwar. We took out Haniyeh. We took out [unclear]. We took out tens of thousands of terrorists. And despite those who said it couldn’t be done, we brought back to Israel every single hostage. Every single hostage, every last one of them. Some of my critics, they don’t want to be reminded of this, but they said, Stop before Rafah. Make a deal. Let’s get the terrorists – let’s get our hostages out. We don’t have to enter Rafah. We don’t have to take the Philadelphi Corridor. We don’t have to take on Hezbollah. And for God’s sake, we shouldn’t take on Iran. But we didn’t listen to them, and we did it. And we got them back because we put our brave soldiers, our incomparably, incomparably heroic soldiers, right into their stronghold in Gaza. And they capitulated. We brought back every last hostage. And it’s an achievement that I think the entire people of Israel and the entire people of the free world should be proud of. We brought them back. In Lebanon, we exploded – I don’t know if to call this the beepers or the pagers. What do you use in America? Deep breaths. We exploded the beepers. We took out Nasrallah. We decimated Hezbollah’s military machine. We prevented the Radwan force from invading the Galilee. We destroyed over 90% of the 150,000 rockets and missiles that Hezbollah amassed against us. We established a security zone in Gaza. We established a security zone in Syria. We established a security zone in Lebanon, and we shall keep it as long as it is necessary to protect our people. I think the greatest achievement we have made is to break through the barrier of fear. For years, people told us, You cannot attack the soil of Iran. Yes, you can do Mossad operations, and we did quite a few. I authorized many. But you cannot send our military to Iran. But we changed that. We sent our brave pilots over the skies of Iran, and they took out targets: regime targets, terror targets, missile batteries, missile production sites, and nuclear sites. We changed Israel’s security doctrine. We initiate, we attack, we surprise, and we attack those enemies that seek our destruction, that seek to kill us. We attack them before they have a chance to do so. If you know Hebrew, [Hebrew] – kill them first.

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