Netanyahu Rejects Claims He Set Regime Change in Iran as War Goal

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a news conference Monday at his office in Jerusalem, his first question-and-answer session with reporters since March, as criticism mounted in Israel over the agreement ending the war between the United States and Iran. He opened by insisting that Iran would not get nuclear weapons, “with an agreement, without an agreement,” and said that under his leadership, “this will not happen.”

Netanyahu said Israel had removed an immediate threat of mass destruction by striking alongside the United States. He said the operation destroyed nuclear facilities, eliminated nuclear scientists and senior figures in what he called a terror regime, and hit missiles and “most of the factories.” He added, “If we had not acted, you all would have been in danger of mass death.” He also said Israel had created deep security buffers in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, and would remain in those zones as long as needed.

He argued that after Hamas’s October 7 attack, he set a principle that Israel would not allow terror groups to prepare another nearby massacre. “The war is not over,” he said, adding that Israel must stay strong, build new alliances in the region and beyond, and preserve its own weapons independence. On President Donald Trump, Netanyahu said they had known each other for years, sometimes saw eye to eye and sometimes did not, but that he was defending Israel’s interests “wisely,” not aggressively.

Netanyahu denied defining “removing the existential threat” from Iran as a war objective, even though that wording still appeared on the Prime Minister’s Office website. He said the goal was to push back the nuclear and missile threat and create conditions for the Iranian people to remove “this terror regime,” adding that Iran’s economy was in very bad shape and its regime had cracks, though he could not say when it might fall. Yet in his May 28 war statement, he had said Israel and the United States had launched an operation to remove the existential threat from Iran’s terror regime. He also said he would run in the next election and intended to win, and reaffirmed that Israel was not bound by the US-Iran agreement.