(Ynet,Haaretz).During a heated Likud faction meeting Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it clear that Israel will soon have to remove the illegal West Bank outposts as demanded by the US – and then focus its attention on the Iranian nuclear threat.
On Illegal Settlement's:
"These are unusual times, and the threat is heading towards us. The most dangerous thing for a living organism is not recognizing the danger.
"My job is to secure the State of Israel's future. This takes precedence over everything else, during the election campaign I also said that we are a law abiding country, and we will have to deal with the illegal outposts – hopefully by way of dialogue."
"Our relationship with the United States is of great importance, Our situation today is different from our situation between 1996 and 1999. Our priorities must be inline with national security needs and we must unite in order to deflect the danger. The Defense Minister and I are working in coordination; he is not conducting an independent policy."
On Iran and US dialogue:
Israel is not like other countries, We are faced with security challenges that no other country faces, and our need to provide a response to these is critical, and we are answering the call."
"These are not regular times. The danger is hurtling toward us?The real danger in underestimating the threat, My job is first and foremost to ensure the future of the state of Israel ... the leadership's job is to eliminate the danger. Who will eliminate it? It is us or no one."
"We reached important understandings ,we agreed with the US that the first and foremost goal must be preventing Iran from attaining nuclear arms."
"Obama will be reassessing the Diplomatic process [with Iran] at the end of the year, and all options remain open in order to reach the goal [of curbing Teheran's atomic aspirations.]"
"I told the president that Israel maintains its right to Self defense ,We renewed important strategic understandings. That's very important, We received aid on concrete needs of the defense system for defending Israel."
On Peace Process:"We agreed with the US on the need to initiate a peace process not only with the Palestinians but with a regional element, which increases the chances of success of our efforts to reach peace," The Americans said it is important to receive something in return from the Palestinians and Arab world, not only at the end of the process but also at the beginning. We said we don't want to control the Palestinians, but we have to maintain our security."
"There were disagreements as there are between friends but we will work to bridge them, I emphasized in all the meetings that Israel is not like other countries. We are under threats no other countries are under, which must make our security a priority.
The PM concluded his Address by retraining his call for Unity.
