Benjamin Netanyahu

Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, the State Department.

we are on the verge of a very big achievement.

It's not final yet, but I hope that in the coming days, during the Sukkot holiday, I will be able to announce to you the return of all the hostages in one phase, while the IDF remains deep inside the Strip and the territories that control it.

Thanks to the great support I received from you, citizens of Israel, and thanks to the bravery of our fighters, I stood up to enormous pressure from home and abroad to stop the war and to give in to Hamas's dictates.

You know what would have happened then.

We would have left Gaza having achieved almost nothing.

Well, after these countries stood up and recognized Palestinian statehood, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave his response.

Ladies and gentlemen.

He took the dais and railed against these moves towards recognition.

Netanyahu's argument, in short, is that recognizing Palestinian statehood is a reward for Hamas.

Murdering Jews pays off.

that what the West is basically saying to Hamas is, you can inflict terror on Israeli citizens, and in our desire for peace, we're going to be willing to give you this very symbolic concession.

The Palestinians, they don't believe in this solution.

They never have.

They don't want a state next to Israel.

They want a Palestinian state

instead of Israel.

And Netanyahu's argument is what we should really be doing is supporting Israel in its effort to crush Hamas, to remove Hamas from the equation altogether, and to back Israel to the hilt, fighting for the return of the hostages and supporting its military campaign in Gaza, rather than heading down what he views as this cul-de-sac of recognizing a Palestinian state.

Yes, I think that's right.

And I think he did it for one critical reason.