Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue “to take vigorous action against Iran‘s attempts to entrench militarily in Syria.” In remarks the Israeli leader made at a state memorial ceremony for late Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, Netanyahu asserted that these successful Israeli efforts are directed “against the (continued) aggression (by) Hezbollah and Hamas.”
Netanyahu also took the opportunity to praise the late Israeli Prime Minister Eshkol, who among other senior positions served as Defense Minister before the Six Day – Middle East – War of 1967. Netanyahu said that “Eshkol did not rejoice in unnecessary wars,” however “when (a) war was forced upon (Israel), it was clear to him that (there was no other choice but) to push back strongly, and repel the aggression directed against the Jewish state.”
Netanyahu said that Eshkol also understood that only military strength and success could manifest in Arab world acceptance of Israel’s irrefutable presence in its antient homeland, a fact that will persuade many to make peace with Jerusalem.
According to Netanyahu: “The crushing victory in the Six Day War was one of the strongest layers of the iron wall that we established against the Arab supremacy, just as foreseen by Jabotinsky, whose remains Eshkol brought to this mountain. Only when our neighbors are convinced that our strength and our presence here are irrefutable facts, only then some of them will be persuaded to make peace with us, and we are fully advancing this recognition and agreement process with our remaining neighbors, not with all of them, but with most of them. We are doing this with extensive segments of the Arab and Islamic world in an expedited normalization process, only part of which the public can see. We are also holding this process in secret, and Israel is currently in contact with half a dozen important Arab and Islamic countries, which up until recently were hostile to Israel. This is incomparably important to the vision of peace – peace through strength.”