"I'd rather have bad press and no eulogies, better a bad press than a good eulogy," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told PBS host Charlie Rose in an interview on Wednesday. The remark was a broad hint at "The New York Times" editorial on Tuesday, which said that Netanyahu seems "eager for a fight," and warned, "It would be disastrous if Netanyahu and his supporters in Congress were so blinded by distrust of Iran that they exaggerate the threat, block President Obama from taking advantage of new diplomatic openings and sabotage the best chance to establish a new relationship."
Netanyahu's media offensive also included interviews with NBC, Spanish-language network Univision, Fox, and CNN.
In the interview with Charlie Rose, which was also aired on CBS, Netanyahu said, "We just have to make sure that in this state of flux, we do the right things and not the wrong things. Because we can easily upset the applecart in a way that we won't be able to put it back together. We cannot do that, we have to be very responsible, buck the trends, don't go by fashion. If you govern by fashion and you govern by the kind of editorials you're gonna get, you'll get good editorials and later you'll get good eulogies. My responsibility is to ensure the survival, security, longevity of the one and only Jewish state. I will do that pursuing peace, and I'm prepared to make historic compromises. I will never compromise on Israel's security. Never."
Netanyahu told Univision's Blanca Rose Vilchez, "Iran directly threatens the annihilation of the state of Israel. They talk about it openly, they're trying to develop nuclear weapons to wipe us off the map, but they're not only threatening us. They're building ICBM's, intercontinental ballistic missiles. They have already missiles that can reach Israel; they're building these long range intercontinental missiles to reach the United States. And they want to arm them with nuclear weapons."
Commenting on Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Netanyahu told NBC's Andrea Mitchell, "He talks about his reverence for democracy in Iran, he tweets here in the US but they don't let the Iranian people use Twitter. He talks about the scourge of terrorism. Iran conducts, as we speak now, terrorist operations in dozens of countries. He speaks of the tragedy in Syria, Iran's forces help Assad perpetrate the massacre of tens of thousands of men, women and children as we speak. It's one thing to say one thing, it's another thing what they do, and I look at what they do, not what they say."
Netanyahu reiterated his mantra not to trust Iran and make sure that it hands over its enriched uranium and that this is verified. Asked if he ran the risk of overstating the threat and isolating Israel from the rest of the world that wants to see a diplomatic solution to the nuclear issue, he said. "No, no, I want a diplomatic solution, but one that actually dismantles Iran’s nuclear program."
The American public isn't buying it. A CNN/ORC poll conducted on September 27-29 September - before Netanyahu's UN speech and round of US media interviews - found that 75% of Americans favor a diplomatic solution with Iran, not military action.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 3, 2013
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