Reaching the man who, apart from Donald Trump, may be the most heavily guarded person in the world was never going to be simple. Even so, the security ordeal that followed was beyond anything I had anticipated.
A taxi left my photographer and me a short distance from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. From there, we made our way towards the seven-storey building, located just a minute’s drive from the Knesset in central Jerusalem.
We first passed the anti-ramming barriers outside before presenting our identification at a wrought-iron gate. Inside was a maze of scanners and X-ray equipment more rigorous than anything found at even the strictest airport.
Armed guards carrying MI6 assault rifles surrounded us as the checks began. Two hours later, I was still waiting while the Daily Mail photographer’s equipment was dismantled piece by piece to establish that no explosives were hidden inside.
Few people understand the dangers posed by electronic devices better than the Israelis. Two years ago, they killed and wounded hundreds of Hezbollah members by remotely detonating explosives concealed inside pagers and walkie-talkies.
The interview had been scheduled for 8.30pm on Thursday, but it was after 9pm before I reached the purpose-built studio. More armed personnel were waiting there — this time masked special forces troops dressed entirely in black.
The Prime Minister arrived soon afterwards. Following a warm handshake, he gestured towards a chair opposite him at the long oak table that formed the centrepiece of the room.
Despite spending the three years since the October 7 attacks confronting crisis after crisis — including the attempted Flydubai hijacking just 18 hours earlier — Netanyahu appeared remarkably composed. Wearing a dark suit, a white shirt and royal blue tie, with an enamel Israeli flag on his lapel, he quickly made clear that he intended to deliver a forceful message. Britain’s Labour Government, he said, was acting “like a rogue state” while appeasing an “Islamist Leftist alliance”.
Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to Natalie Lisbona in an exclusive Daily Mail interview
His criticism focused on the Government’s decision last month to prohibit trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank. That move followed Keir Starmer’s decision to suspend some arms licences and recognise a Palestinian state before all the hostages taken on October 7 had been released.
Netanyahu was especially angered because the announcement came after Israeli intelligence had warned British security services of an imminent Iran-backed “murderous attack” targeting RAF Fairford.
“It was stopped. It was prevented,” he said. Without the intelligence supplied by Israel, he added, “it would probably have gone through and we don’t know how many British lives would have been lost”.
Although Netanyahu said Israel continued to regard Britain as an ally, he followed that assurance with an extraordinary attack on the Labour Government. “It’s mind-blowing hypocrisy,” he said, arguing that he could not say how many lives Israel had saved by sharing warnings about planned attacks.
“They’re appeasing, they’re attacking Israel, [the country] that is fighting the terrorists in the terrorist regime that is attacking them. They appease their enemies, and they attack their protectors, really. That’s what’s happening. But this is a twist of both logic and justice. It doesn’t serve Britain well, it doesn’t serve the world well.”
Netanyahu also confirmed that he has yet to speak to Andy Burnham, despite the former Manchester mayor taking office in July. He accused Labour of allowing pressure within Britain to shape its policy towards Israel.
“There is a pressure from inside Britain to appease these various Islamist forces in Britain. And once you start appeasing, you don’t stop. That’s what we learn. Churchill called it the slumber of democracies. And by that he meant the democracy sort of slumbers while their enemies begin to attack them… until they hear the jarring gong of danger.
“Well, it’s gonging all the way, and they still haven’t woken up.”
Asked to describe the current relationship between Britain and Israel, Netanyahu offered an equally blunt assessment. “Well, it’s not very good, is it? I mean, when they appease our common enemies and attack us, it doesn’t say much.”
He said Israel was fighting what he called the “Battle of Britain” — a wider struggle to defend Western civilisation against “barbarians”. Netanyahu condemned what he described as widespread deception and propaganda, including attempts to glorify Hamas and Islamist groups responsible for killing Britons, Americans, Israelis and citizens of dozens of other countries.
“And Israel is painted as this great devil. We’re not the devil. We’re a tiny country fighting here in the heart of the Middle East, not only to protect ourselves, but also to protect the modern Arab states against the Iranian domination and these murderous proxies.”
‘We always consider Britain as an ally, even though we have, on occasion, differences with them.’
Dressed in a dark suit – with an enamel badge of the Israeli flag on his lapel – and a white shirt with a royal blue tie, it was soon clear he meant business
He suggested the relationship was in danger of deteriorating to the point where the British Government, ‘in order to ingratiate itself with its political base, has gone rogue. Like a rogue state’.
He argued that Labour should view the ‘Islamist Leftist alliance’ as ‘natural adversaries’.
‘What do these people do? They hang gays, you know, they deprive women of any rights. They murder their own people in Gaza, or Lebanon, or Iran. Executing all their enemies. They are the opposite of democracies. And what does the government in Britain do? It turns on the one democracy that is fighting these monstrous regimes in this terrible state, the worst terrorist state on the planet. That’s what Britain is doing.’
Israel and Britain maintain extensive intelligence ties, particularly when it comes to terrorism, Iran and regional security. But asked whether Israel would continue sharing intelligence, Netanyahu refused to be drawn.
‘I won’t get into that, but we just did,’ he said, referring to the Fairford incident. ‘That’s a fact.’
And that was no isolated example, he says, adding that Israeli intelligence has repeatedly helped protect Britain from attacks.
‘I don’t know how many Britons know how many lives we saved by giving Britain advance information of impending attacks.’ Netanyahu argued that the UK Government was targeting Israel while, in his view, failing to confront their common enemies. This catalogue of public rebukes by such a long-time ally highlights how far relations between Israel and Britain have deteriorated.
He also blamed Labour policies towards Israel for fuelling anti-Semitism. ‘Look, we’ve been there before. The Jewish people have suffered these kinds of vilifications that always, always preceded the most violent attacks on our people during our, you know, centuries of our exile and the various diasporas.
‘And then, of course, it reached a peak in the Nazi Holocaust, which was also preceded with the same lies and the same vilifications… Apparently, this is something we’re going to have to live with in this century, too. The one thing that has changed is that we now have a state. We now have an army. We have security and intelligence agencies that can help us protect ourselves. But in so doing, when we defend ourselves, we also defend our vilifiers. That’s the incredible thing that is happening.’
Turning to Iran, Netanyahu offered a message to Iranians opposing the country’s leadership. ‘This regime will fall. They take time, but they’ll fall. Right now, they’re very weak. President Trump’s blockade is really weakening the IRGC [the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps] a lot. So I’d say, don’t lose faith. Your day of freedom will come.’
But he quickly turned his attention back to Britain, questioning why demonstrators and the Government were not directing greater anger towards Tehran.
‘But what I say to the people in Britain, where are you? Those who are protesting against us? Why aren’t you protesting outside the Iranian embassy? Why don’t you get the full venom of the British Government? Where is it? Why is it not directed against Iran? Why is it not directed against his proxies?
‘Why are you taking this brave, small democracy, fighting as Britain fought against the tyranny that threatened not only Britain, but the entire world. Why are you turning against the one country that is standing in defence of freedom and democracy? Why are you buying all these lies that are perpetrated against us?’
Netanyahu also accused Western governments of focusing their criticism on Israel while failing to recognise the threat posed by Iran. ‘This is a regime in Iran that murdered or maimed tens of thousands of its own citizens. They’re now choking the economies of the West. They’re choking your energy supplies. They’re choking your economies. They’re choking the international waterways.
‘I don’t see the railing of, you know, of rage that is directed against Israel directed there. So it’s completely misplaced. In Israel, which is the defender of civilisation right now.
‘With the help of our American allies, we went against Iran’s nuclear programme. What would have happened if Iran had nuclear weapons now? Think of what they’re doing without nuclear weapons. Just hitting everybody in sight. And choking the world.’
Netanyahu, who confirmed that he is yet to speak to Andy Burnham despite the fact the former Manchester mayor took office in July, went on to accuse Labour of bowing to domestic pressure over its approach to Israel
Given that we’re speaking the day after the dramatic hijack attempt on an airliner flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv, I ask whether he suspects Iranian involvement.
‘As time passes, the picture becomes clearer: the attacker had undergone Islamist radicalisation,’ he replies. ‘He came to crash the plane, along with its passengers. We are investigating whether he was sent, and whoever sent him will pay a very heavy price.’
The incident is all the more poignant for Netanyahu because it occurred around the 50th anniversary of the Entebbe raid, in which his brother Yoni was killed while leading the Israeli operation to rescue hostages from a hijacked Air France airliner in Uganda.
He praised the Israeli passengers who courageously intervened to rescue the Flydubai pilot and regain control of the plane, saying he was ‘amazed’ by their success in preventing a 9/11-style tragedy.
‘If it wasn’t for the extraordinary courage and resourcefulness of this Israeli passenger, you know, the sewage plumber. He heard screams from the cockpit. He ran to the cockpit. The plane was already veering out of control. He was thrust to the side.
‘He apparently managed to open the door because of the Indian pilot’s action, but he still had to move the Indian pilot, this brave pilot, and grab the attacker, the co-pilot, who nearly stabbed this guy to death, and pull him away. He was leaning, actually, he said, on the instrument panel, kicking it. Tried to jam it to make sure that [the plane] goes down.
‘He grabbed him, pulled him back, then grabbed the stick, pulled the stick back, and prevented, you know, that continuous slide down. And he was joined by other Israelis and a crew member. They tied the hijacker with the cord of the headphones in the cockpit. Can you imagine?’
He praised the ‘extraordinary teamwork’ of the plumber and the off-duty pilots who happened to be on board, and described their success in preventing a disaster as ‘so improbable that it almost sounds miraculous, and in fact, it is miraculous’. He added: ‘I served in our special forces. We said, ‘if we have these contingencies, we’ll know what to do’. These are civilians. First of all, I’m not sure that had I been there with my team, my soldiers, we would have done better. But these extraordinarily brave Israelis, you know, they organised the matter.’
Netanyahu will soon have to turn his mind to domestic politics as the electorate head to the polls on October 27, with the sitting PM seeking another mandate after three years of war.
Asked why voters should return him to office, he pointed to his government’s record against Hamas and Hezbollah and its success in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. ‘We could have all been incinerated by now,’ he said, ‘and they are developing long-range missiles.
‘They’re attacking us from the outside, and they’ll attack you from the outside, but from the inside, you have this appeasing the government, that is a very deadly combination.’
In a rare glimpse into the personal toll his political career has taken, Netanyahu admitted that attacks directed at his wife Sara and their children were difficult to endure. ‘I’m used to paying the price, being in public office, but the virulent attacks against my wife, the character assassination, and against my kids, is hard to take. That is hard. I won’t tell you that it’s easy. It’s not.’
By now, I’ve already been warned my 20 minutes are nearly up and, having managed to extract an extra ten, I decide it’s time to bring the interview to a close.
But there’s still time for Netanyahu to launch one final salvo against Burnham’s Britain, this time over the small-boat crisis.
‘I think that if Britain doesn’t regain control over its borders, you will lose Britain,’ he said.
He added that Churchill always thought Britain’s status as an island gave it a great ability to defend itself. ‘I don’t think that’s holding now because of the boats, and obviously, it’s up to the British Government to control that, or to prevent it. It’s possible. But they haven’t asked for our advice, and we haven’t given it.
‘There’s still time for Britain to recover, to regain its senses. I hope that it does, because we’ve had an extraordinary relationship with Britain over the decades, and I’m the first one to regret that it’s… that it’s gone where it’s going.’
