Nir Barkat, the former mayor of Jerusalem from 2008-2018 and the current Israeli Minister of the Economy, made it clear that Israel was not just fighting for itself in its war against Hamas, but for the West against the onslaught of radical Islamic terrorism.
Barkat appeared on Fox News with host Neil Cavuto. He noted of the Hamas massacre of 1400 Israelis on October 7, “You saw the atrocities; you saw how they burned people alive; you saw how they raped women and put a little baby in the oven and cook him. We saw all the atrocities; they filmed it themselves. They were proud of it … they’re monsters.”
Referring to the United States, he continued. “We will never forget our friends. You folks have stood behind us at the toughest times Israel has ever had in its existence. And we will never forget that.”
Cavuto pointed out that after the October 7 massacre of 1400 Israelis by Hamas, many people around the world only gave Israel their sympathy for a couple of days, noting, “You only had a few days of global sort of support and sympathy after the October 7 attack, and that was it.”
“The atrocities are worse than the Nazis; Nazis hid the atrocities,” Barkat responded. “And Hamas, ISIS, didn’t even hide it; they’re proud of it. … In the war against Germany, I don’t remember anybody asking for any kind of humanitarian gestures. Just complete 100% surrender. This is what will happen to Hamas.”
“And we in Israel have a very soft heart for people,” Barkat noted “We don’t want to hit any innocent people. We hide our people in shelters [from Hamas rockets], they don’t. They hide behind their citizens; they’re using our people [the hostages] as human shields. And we have to go through this and make sure that we don’t hurt innocent people and we enable them to flow back to safety on the southern part of Gaza when we attack the north part. We don’t need the world to tell us; we know we will be as considerate as possible.”
“However, we will wipe Hamas off the face of the Earth. No compromise,” he continued.
“You know, this is not just for Israel,” he stated. “There’s a reason why the Arab states, the moderate Arab states are waiting for us to beat Hamas. There’s a reason, because the world understands that if the Islamic Jihad is successful in this horrendous attack and they get away with it, it’s going to happen all over the world. That’s why we have to win and have total surrender. And we need the help of the world. Give us the time we need. We’re considerate, we don’t want to hurt innocent people, but we have to wipe Hamas off the face of the Earth.”