Netanyahu: President Trump’s Idea of Cleaning Up Gaza ‘Has the Potential to Change Everything’

EXCERPT:

NETANYAHU: “I think that President Trump’s proposal is the first fresh idea in years, and it has the potential to change everything in Gaza. Otherwise we can keep coming back to the same thing over and over, same old, same old, same old. You know, we leave Gaza becomes again reopened by these terrorists, we use it as a base to attack Israel. And he comes forward and he says, ‘Let’s have a new idea.’ By the way, I’ve seen him do this time and again, he cuts to the chase, he asks you these things or he says things that people find jarring initially, and then they — I said, they scratch their heads, they say, ‘You know what, he’s got a point here.’ And sometimes, and I hope this time too, they say, ‘He’s right.’ Because it happened many times. So it’s happened this time, too. What is Gaza? Gaza is basically a small area right next to — it’s 25 miles from Tel Aviv, which Hamas has used as a spring board for continuous attacks, terrorist attacks against Israel. We come come in, we slap them, smack them, and we leave, and then we do it again and we — they do it again, we do it again. Doesn’t go anywhere. Now, we did something else. We’re going to finish Hamas off. And what happens then? Do you leave people there with all of that devastation? Do you say, ‘Well, you know, they have to stay in confined?’ Because nobody lets them leave. Everybody describes Gaza as the biggest open air prison in the world. You know why? Because they’re not allowed to leave. Therefore, you know, they’re just getting more and more densely populated, more miserable, overtaken time and time again by these terrorists. And in come President Trump and he says, ‘Hey, open the gate. Let them leave and I’ll find a place of destination for temporary relocation. I’ll clean up this devastation site.’ Devastation caused by the fact that Hamas was fighting from densely populated areas and forced us to take action, also devastated by their booby traps that they put there in every house. They did that. A lot of this is self-inflicted. So, you know, get the population out, allow them to leave. Not forcible eviction, not ethnic cleansing. Getting people out of what all these countries and all these do-gooders say is an open-air prison. Why are you keeping them in prison?”