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Posted on 09/17/2001 7:06:33 AM PDT by truthandlife

Part 1 of his interview follows:

Part I

SAVAGE:

Mr. Netanyahu, welcome to the Savage Nation. I know this is a terrible time for America as well as for Israel, but can you tell us who you think is behind this crime against humanity?

NETANYAHU:

There is no question but there is a terror network that consists of several terrorist states; Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, a few other Middle Eastern regimes and affiliated groups, which include bin Laden, the Hezbolah in Lebanon, and of course these various terrorist groups operating under Arafat's PLO.

SAVAGE:

Is Arafat connected? Do you think Arafat is connected to this act against humanity?

NETANYAHU:

Well I don't know about this particular attack, but various components of this terror network support one another in materiel, often in intelligence. We know bin Laden has been cooperating with the Palestinian terror groups in Arafat's domain for quite some time and they support each other politically.

I think that one must understand that this, as President Bush has said, this new terrorism, whose main engine is militancy against the West, has declared war on the West and on the leader of the West, on the United States. They are fueled primarily by what is a fantasy, and that is the idea that they'll reverse history and reverse the rise of Western democracy and restore their warped interpretation of Islam. That's what they do, and America stands in the way, so America has to be destroyed. Now it's fantastic, but that's what they think.

Now it doesn't make any difference if there is one attack and you get bin Laden, it makes a hell of a difference if he's the one who did it and he should get it, but there will be others after him because this is part of a movement. It's part of a century-old antipathy towards the West. And so it's not enough to just apprehend the kamikaze squadron. You have to get the aircraft carrier that is making possible other attacks and future attacks by other kamikazes.

SAVAGE:

So what must be done? The aircraft carriers I assume are the states that sponsor these terrorists.

NETANYAHU:

That's absolutely correct.

SAVAGE:

Are you suggesting a war against the very nations that we know very well sponsor terrorism? Are you suggesting that's what will happen or what should happen?

NETANYAHU:

Well, first of all you are at war because they are conducting these attacks against you and they're making it possible. President Bush has said correctly that what you have to go after is not merely the terrorist organizations, but all these states who harbor terrorists, let alone finance them, equip them, give them a safe haven, dispatch them, give them political cover, and so on.

I think what's important to understand that what you saw in New York was a wake-up call from hell. Sure, five years ago I wrote a book, and I said if the Islamic militant terror groups are not stopped, then the next thing you'll see, as I wrote in the book "Fighting Terrorism," is not going to be a car bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center, but a nuclear bomb. OK, they didn't put in a nuclear bomb, they just put in a 360-ton conventional bomb.

But do you doubt at all that if Iran or Iraq acquire nuclear weapons or develop them (and they're feverishly developing them) that they will one day make those available or indeed be capable of such an attack on the United States? Can you tell me that this will not happen? I think we are faced here with new forces that are not susceptible to the old terms, to the sober calculations of cost and benefit.

These are not Soviets. This is not communism. This is a different conception of the world dominion that seeks to operate unlike communism, irrationally. I think communism was completely irrational in its goal, completely irrational on reversing human nature. But communism was pursued absolutely rationally. Every time the Soviets had to choose between their ideology and their life, they chose their life. Whether in Cuba, the Cuban Missile Crisis, or in the Berlin crisis, or in any other crisis, they never ever put ideology above life.

These people put their fanatic hatred of the West, that goes back centuries, they put that above life itself. Not only the lives of thousands, and tomorrow millions of the hated infidels in the west, but their own lives as well. So you cannot be sure that deterrence will work. Now how you dismantle this terror in part is a different question. But should you dismantle it, you should, in time because you have the power to do it.

They have the will to destroy the West. They don't have the power today. You have the power today, we all do, the power to crush this terror network. What we must now show is that we have the will to do so.

SAVAGE:

Well there is the key fulcrum of our discussion. Does the West have the will? Aren't we showing weakness in our lack of reaction thus far?

NETANYAHU:

No, I don't think you need an instantaneous reaction, and actually I am very impressed with the strength that is communicated by the American people, its government, its citizens, the people of New York, the leadership of New York, Mayor Giuliani. I think it is admirable. I think there is self-constraint, self control, there's enormous grief, but there's also patriotic strength and a feeling that all the democracies have to unite in order to slay this evil. I think America projects strength, not weakness.

SAVAGE:

I am going to ask a very sensitive question, but I know you've answered it before, so you'll take it please in context. If Israel did not exist, would these terrorist have attacked the United States?

NETANYAHU:

Well it's interesting to hear the Taliban leader, issuing a statement, saying that he describes three great enemies; the British, the Russians, and now the Americans. For them, this is a war of civilization. For them, this is the war of the believers against the infidels. We happen to be a part of the main infidel network.

They don't hate America because of Israel. They hate Israel because of America. They think that we are merely an outpost of the three Western democratic civilizations that they hate so much. And you know the antagonism of militant Islam towards the West goes back 1,000 years, for the millennium before Israel was added to its list of enemies. So I think that if people think that, "Oh well, if we give Yasser Arafat land above Tel Aviv," that this would make any difference. He'd like to be above Tel Aviv because it would enable him to push us into the sea a lot earlier and more easily. But it wouldn't make a world of a difference. Except for the fact that a major outpost of the United States, of the West, would be removed.

I tell you something, if Belgium were here, if Holland were here, if any other Western country were here, they'd attack us equally, so we're merely an extension, in their view, of this Western culture, working civilization, of free society that they find so hateful, and so much deserving of eradication.

To be continued.

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