Haaretz Newspaper, 1989 : Deputy Foreign Minister MK Bibi Netanyahu, the man who this week bitterly lamented the lack of Glasnost in the Arab states, is the same man who said this week: ‘Israel should have taken advantage of the suppression of the demonstrations in China [Tiananmen Square], when the world’s attention was focussed on what was happening in that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the Territories. However, to my regret, they did not support that policy that I proposed, and which I still propose should be implemented.’
It is a good thing that there is Glasnost in Communist bloc countries, because that permits us to say to the Arab states: why don’t you try a little Glasnost yourselves? Isn’t it about time you joined the family of civilized nations? But on the other hand, there is no need to carry this blessed process too far, because it is useful that a few Communist states remain that suppress Glasnost with an iron fist, preferably with bloodshed. Because if none such remain, how can we take advantage of the world’s attention being focussed on what is going on there, in order to transfer our Arabs in a civilized way here?
Report: Netanyahu says 9/11 terror attacks good for Israel
The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv on Wednesday reported that Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan university that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks had been beneficial for Israel.
"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," Ma'ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events "swung American public opinion in our favor."
Netanyahu reportedly made the comments during a conference at Bar-Ilan University on the division of Jerusalem as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cast doubt over the veracity of the September 11 attacks Thursday, calling it a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Four or five years ago, a suspicious event occurred in New York. A building collapsed and they said that 3,000 people had been killed but never published their names," Ahmadinejad told Iranians in the holy city of Qom.
"Under this pretext, they [the U.S.] attacked Afghanistan and Iraq and since then, a million people have been killed only in Iraq."
Speaking Wednesday at a news conference on the Iran threat, Netanyahu compared Ahmadinejad to Adolf Hitler and likened Tehran's nuclear program to the threat the Nazis posed to Europe in the late 1930s.
Netanyahu said Iran differed from the Nazis in one vital respect, explaining that "where that [Nazi] regime embarked on a global conflict before it developed nuclear weapons," he said. "This regime [Iran] is developing nuclear weapons before it embarks on a global conflict."
