PM Netanyahu addresses the IDF General Staff Forum

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Monday, 30 June 2025), at the Kirya in Tel Aviv, met with the IDF General Staff Forum, together with Defense Minister Israel Katz and IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir.

The Prime Minister commended the major-generals of the IDF for their part in Operation Rising Lion in Iran and thanked them for their contribution to ensuring the eternity of Israel.

Prime Minister Netanyahu:

“Personally, I would like to express immense appreciation and gratitude to you Defense Minister Israel Katz, to you IDF Chief-of-Staff Eyal Zamir and to you, the members of the General Staff Forum for perfectly executing that missions that we set. ‘A people that rises up as a lion’ – and much more.

Over the centuries of our exile, the Jewish People lost the ability to oppose those who attacked it. We became as a leaf driven in the wind, a people that experienced exile, pogroms, murders and, in the end, the worst act of murder in history.

When the fathers of Zionism arose approximately 130 years ago, most of them did not think that the attacks on the Jewish People would end with the establishment of the State of Israel, but that we would formulate the diplomatic and military force to oppose these attacks. This is the line that separates between the generations of Jewish history and what has happened in our generation – the establishment of the state and the IDF.

In Iran, a threat was created for us that was no less strong and perhaps even greater than the pan-Arab threat at its peak, and it still threatens us.

Forty years ago, and certainly 35 years ago, I thought that the greatest danger to humanity was the link between nuclear weapons and an Islamist regime, or the link between an Islamist regime and nuclear weapons.

But Iran did not suffice with this because, in effect, they built three axes of annihilation:

First – the noose, a plan for the annihilation of Israel by means of an axis. The second – a plan for the annihilation of Israel by means of a missile threat. And the third – a plan for the annihilation of Israel by means of a nuclear threat.

This is the raison d’etre of the regime. This is not the only reason why they want to annihilate us and we are not their main objective. But in order to realize the main objectives, they must get rid of us. It is impossible to conquer the Middle East without annihilating Israel. And if there is no Israel, the Middle East collapses immediately.

The State of Israel was like a person who has two cancerous tumors – one was the nuclear threat and the second was the missile threat. If you do not excise them – you die. It could be that you excise them and they return, like you treat cancer. But if you do not excise them, we die.

Therefore, there was no question here. We had to make this decision. And the way in which it was made, unanimously by the political echelon, and unanimously by the IDF command – under your outstanding leadership, which improved exceptionally on a daily and weekly basis.

The question arose regarding the US, and I told you that we would do everything to get them on board, but this was not a condition. It was not a condition.

But none of this would have been possible without the intensive and superb operation that will be etched in the history of our people, and – in my view – in the history of the world, certainly in the military history, which I believe everyone will come to study. This has major implications for our economy – we are already feeling it.”