A day to be proud to be MAGA, with an American President bringing peace to the world and ending ancient hatreds with a quip and a joke. Speaking to the notoriously fractious Israeli Knesset, President Trump had them laughing and clapping along with his historic speech ending the Gaza War. Read the full speech here:
President Donald J. Trump: Thank you very much, everybody. (Applause)
It’s a great honor. Nice place. Very nice place. (Laughter)
Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker, esteemed members of the Knesset, and cherished citizens of Israel.
We gather on a day of profound joy, of soaring hope, of renewed faith, and above all, a day to give our deepest thanks to the almighty God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (Applause)
After two harrowing years in darkness and captivity, 20 courageous hostages are returning to the glorious embrace of their families, and it is glorious.
28 more precious loved ones are coming home at last to rest in this sacred soil for all of time.
And after so many years of unceasing war and endless danger, today the skies are calm, the guns are silent, the sirens are still, and the sun rises on a holy land that is finally at peace.
A land and a region that will live, God willing, in peace for all eternity. (Applause)
This is not only the end of a war. This is the end of an age of terror and death and the beginning of the age of faith and hope and of God.
It’s the start of a grand concord and lasting harmony for Israel and all the nations of what will soon be a truly magnificent region. I believe that so strongly.
This is the historic dawn of a new Middle East. I want to express my gratitude to a man of exceptional courage and patriotism, whose partnership did so much to make this momentous day possible.
You know who I’m talking about. There’s only one. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Applause)
And he’s not easy, I want to tell you. He’s not the easiest guy to deal with. But that’s what makes him great. That’s what makes him great. (Applause)
Thank you very much, Bibi. Great job. (Applause)
Let me also convey my tremendous appreciation for all of the nations of the Arab and Muslim world that came together to press Hamas to set the hostages free and to send them home.
We had a lot of help. We had a lot of help from a lot of people that you wouldn’t suspect. And I want to thank them very much for that.
It’s an incredible triumph for Israel and the world to have all of these nations working together as partners in peace.
And it’s pretty unusual for you to see that. But it happened in this case. This was a very unusual point in time, a brilliant point in time.
Generations from now, this will be remembered as the moment that everything began to change and change very much for the better.
Like the USA right now, it will be the golden age of Israel and the golden age of the Middle East. It’s going to work together.
I’d like to thank several great American patriots for their invaluable help in getting something done that almost everyone thought was absolutely impossible.
We were wasting our time. So many people said, you’re just wasting your time.
But we weren’t because we had talented people working with us and we had people that love your country and frankly, people that love the region.
They love the Middle East. Want to thank my friend Steve Witkoff.
You know, Steve was chosen by me. He never did this before, but I knew him as a few things.
He was a great businessman, but I know a lot of great businessmen, to be honest with you.
He had tremendous negotiating skills, but I know a lot of people that negotiate pretty well, although it is an art.
But people that can negotiate pretty well. But most importantly, with Steve, he’s just a great guy. Everybody loves him.
I mean, I know some negotiators that are so good, but you wouldn’t have had peace in the Middle East.
It would be in World War Three right now with some of these guys. Everybody loves Steve and they respect him and they somehow can relate to him.
I’ve known him for many years and I’ve seen it over and over again. (Applause)
(Trump is interrupted by two left-wing Knesset members, Ayman Odeh and Ofer Kassif, shouting “Recognize Palestine!” as they are hustled out of the chamber.)
That was very efficient. (Laughter, applause)
So back to Steve. He’s… (Laughter, applause) But I tell one story because he was so involved and then we called in Jared. We need that brain on occasion. “We got to get Jared in here.” We got to get a certain group of people. But Steve started this all by himself.
I call him “Henry Kissinger, who doesn’t leak.” Henry is a big leaker. (laughter)
He leaked. Steve doesn’t leak. Steve just wants to get the job done.
He wants to do what’s right. But I’ll give you just a quick story, because, as you know, he’s working on the war with Russia and Ukraine.
A war that would have never happened if I were president. A shame. Seven thousand young soldiers a week are being killed. More than that this last week. It’s a shame that it ever happened. But it did happen and we won the race and I took over this horrible war that’s been raging and I thought it would be easily settled. I thought it was a hell of a lot easier than doing what we just did very successfully with Israel and a lot of other people.
But this came first and we’ll get that one. But I set up a meeting for him to meet with President Putin, thinking it would be a 15 or 20 minute meeting. Steve had no idea about Russia, had no idea about Putin too much, didn’t know too much about politics, wasn’t that interested. He was really good at real estate, but he had that quality that I was looking for and I didn’t see it around in too many ways. And I set up the meeting with Putin and I called. I said, is Steve finished yet?
That was about a half an hour into the meeting. No, sir, he’s not. He’s still inside. This is in Moscow. I said, well, how’s he doing? I don’t know, sir. He’s still inside. I called up an hour later. Let me speak to Steve. Sir, he’s still with Putin. He’s with President Putin. I said, wow, it’s a long meeting. One hour. I called up an hour later. He’s still with Putin. Three hours later, he was still with Putin. Four hours later, he started to get the word that he was going to be coming out soon.
And in five hours he came out. I said, what the hell were you talking about for five hours? And he says, just a lot of interesting things. We just we’re talking about a lot of interesting things, including what he went in there for. But you can’t talk about it for five. You can talk about it for a certain period of time and you know what you’re getting. But that’s a talent. That’s a talent where you can do that. Most people I’d send in.
Number one, they wouldn’t be accepted. Number two, if they were worthy, meeting would last five minutes. And that’s what happens with Steve. Everybody loves him. They love him on this side. They love him on the other side. And he really is. He’s a great negotiator because he’s a great guy.
So thank you very much. Very much. And let me also give a very special thanks to someone who truly loves Israel.
In fact, loves it so much that my daughter converted. I didn’t know this was going to happen. And Ivanka is here. And, Bibi, you do know this was not in the cards for me. You understand that.
And she is so happy and they are so happy. At least I think they’re happy. If they’re not, we have a big story. Right now, they have a great marriage and they’re they get along great. They’re best friends, they have a very special relationship. But Jared has been so helpful.
He really did something very special. He established the Abraham Accords with a group of very wonderful people. I like calling it the “Avraham Accords”, it’s so cool. It’s so much nicer.
I just don’t want to sound too sanctimonious when I do it. So, you know, I sort of split it up.
This way we keep everybody happy. But we have some very great talent and they have no excuses for anything that’s taken place because we had some unbelievably good people working on this.
And then you’re going to add a man named Marco Rubio, who is also here. And I have a prediction that Marco will go down. I mean, this is the greatest secretary of state in the history of the United States. I believe that. And he and I, you know, we really fought it out. You remember he was tough. He was nasty. Who the hell thought this was going to happen, Marco?
And now he’s going to go down as the greatest. He will. He was always he was always smart and sharp and people respect him. And then we have somebody who’s young, but an unbelievable leader.I saw it a long time ago and he’s turned out to be even better, even better than we thought.
Right, Susie? I think even better. And that’s Pete hegseth, who is our Secretary of War, formerly Secretary of Defense.
And as you know, we decisively won World War One. We decisively won World War Two, and everything in between and everything before it. We won everything. And then they had the brilliant idea of changing the name from Department of War to Department of Defense. And with that one, a certain thinking.
And we fought in a very politically correct way. After that, we always had the strongest military. And now we have a stronger military than we’ve ever had before because of my first term.
I’ve totally rebuilt the military, every aspect of it. I think we settled eight wars in eight months. I’m now including this one, by the way, if that’s OK. They may say, well, that was quick because yesterday I was saying seven, but now I can say eight.
The hostages are back. It is a good feeling and nice to say, you know, I just said the first time I said the hostages are back.
It sounds it feels so good to say it. But when you settle eight wars in eight months, that means you don’t like war.
Everyone thought I was going to be brutal. In fact, I remember Hillary Clinton during a debate.
She said, look at him, look at him. He’s going to go into war with everybody.
And actually, she said he’s got a personality. It’s all about war.
No. And my personality actually is all about stopping wars.
And it seems to work. Seems to work. But it also means this name change and our attitude that we’re not going to go into a war.
But if we do, we’re going to win that war like nobody has ever won a war before.
We will not be politically correct, but we’re not going to be there.
And I think, you know, as you mentioned, Bibi, “peace through strength”, that’s what it’s all about. The United States has the greatest and most powerful military in the right now history of the world.
I can tell you we have weapons that nobody’s ever dreamt of. I only hope we never have to use them.
I rebuilt the military. I was proud to do it. But some of the things I hated to do, I hated certain of the weapons because the level of power is so enormous.
It’s so dangerous, so bad. But we have to do what we have to do.
We make the best weapons in the world and we’ve got a lot of them and we’ve given a lot to Israel, frankly.
Bibi would call me so many times, can you get me this weapon, that weapon?
Some of them I never heard of, Bibi, and I made them. But we’d get them here, wouldn’t we?
And they are the best. They are the best. And you used them well.
It also takes people that know how to use them. And you obviously used them very well.
But so many that Israel became strong and powerful, which ultimately led to peace. That’s what led to peace.
So as we celebrate today, let us remember how this nightmare of depravity and death all began.
Two years ago, on the eve of the Simchah Torah holiday, thousands of innocent Israeli civilians were attacked by terrorists.
And one of the most evil and heinous desecrations of innocent life the world has ever seen, the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
The cruelty of October 7th struck to the core of humanity itself.
Nobody could believe what they were witnessing. The United States of America grieved alongside you.
And we mourned for our own citizens who were so viciously taken that day.
And to all the families whose lives were forever changed by the atrocities of that day.
And all of the people of Israel, please know that America joins you in those two everlasting vows.
Never forget and never again.
From October 7th until this week, Israel has been a nation at war, enduring burdens that only a proud and faithful people could withstand.
It was a very tough period of time.
For so many families across this land, it has been years since you’ve known a single day of true peace.
But now at last, not only for Israelis, but also for Palestinians and for many others, the long and painful nightmare is finally over.
And as the dust settles, the smoke fades, the debris is removed, and the ashes clean from the air.
The day that breaks on a region transformed and a beautiful and much brighter future appears suddenly within your reach.
This is now a very exciting time for Israel and for the entire Middle East, because all across the Middle East, the forces of chaos, terror and ruin that have plagued the region for decades now stand weakened, isolated and totally defeated.
A new coalition of proud and responsible nations is emerging.
And because of us, the enemies of all civilization are in retreat.
Thanks to the bravery and incredible skill of the Israeli Defense Forces and “Operation Rising Lion.”
(indicates IDF generals) That’s central casting. Let’s put him in a movie. Look at him. Great job. And my people love working with you. Loved it. They work so well together.
But many of Iran’s top terrorists, including nuclear scientists and commanders, have been extinguished from this earth.
And with Operation Midnight Hammer, boy, that’s a great name for that.
What we did last year, the United States military flew seven of those beautiful B2 bombers.
They look so beautiful. I thought they were pretty planes.
I had no idea they could do what they did. In fact, we just ordered 28 more of them. A little updated version. We ordered a whole pile of them.
And almost 100 other planes went with them, including fighter jets. We had 52 tankers, big, beautiful, brand new tankers that were loading them up four or five times. They traveled 37 hours back and forth. Think of that. But we had tankers all over the sky for all the other planes. We had the F-22s, the F-35s, F-16s. We had a hell of a lot of planes.
So we had 52 gas stations in the sky. That’s what they call them. I wouldn’t want to be flying one of them.
We have our great General “Raisin” Cain right here. General, stand up. This guy. What a general. I asked General (Dan) Cain, I said, you know, we’re having problems with ISIS.
I was in Washington and I asked, how long would it take to defeat ISIS? And my Washington Generals told me three, four, maybe five years, sir.
I said, I don’t get it. We’ve got the best equipment in the world. Why?
So I flew to Iraq and I met with a man named Cain. I said, what’s your first name? He said, they call me “Raisin”, sir. I said, wait a minute. Your name is “Raisin Cain”? I’ve been looking for you for a long time. You got to be kidding.
So they told me “three, four or five years to defeat ISIS.” And I sit down with him and I say, why is it? I flew there in the dark of night. I land on, never forget it. It’s quite a trip. I’m glad I made it because I met him.
I said, could I ask you, General? Everybody was like central casting. They could go into a movie right now. Between him and you guys over here, we could get rich making movies. And they got along so great. That’s the beautiful thing that your military and our military, we got along so great. But I was told by the television generals in Washington, “we have the best equipment in the world. Why is it taking so long?” And they said four years.
And I said, Raisin, how long would it take you to defeat ISIS? “Sir, we can do it in three weeks, but you’ll probably have some time left over.” I said, you’ve got to be kidding. What the hell are you talking about?
They said four years. He said, “well, sir, look, it’s not my place to say. But you’re asking me the question. What you have to do is, you hit him from the West. You hit him from the North. You hit him from the South. You hit him above. You hit him below.”
I said, “o why didn’t they do it?” And he didn’t want to speak badly of his superiors, which is hard to believe they were his superiors. Could have been the other way around a long time ago because he’s the one that did Operation (Midnight Hammer). It was flawless. It was absolutely flawless.
And I said, “So you really think you can do it in four weeks?”
He said “Yes, sir. One hundred percent. You have to do it differently than they were doing it. They were using one base and it was hundreds of miles away.”
And he says, “We have all these “bases” all over the Middle East and they didn’t want to use them because they didn’t want to offend the country.” They wouldn’t have even known what the hell the planes were going up. right? They wouldn’t have known. But he said, “no, they didn’t want to defend anybody, offend anybody.”
But we can do it in four weeks. I said, “you sure about that? I’ll call you back on Monday. I’m going back to Washington. But you think four weeks?”
“Yes, I think we can do it in four weeks. We’ll have time left over.”
So I call him on Monday. I say, “you think you can do it in four weeks?” I said, “go ahead and do it.”
He did it. I’ll tell you, he did it in four weeks, less than four.
So, General, stand up, please. Again, this is a real general. This is not a television general. He doesn’t want to go on television. I said the other guys love being on television.”
So we dropped 14 bombs on Iran’s key nuclear facilities, totally, as I said, originally obliterating them.
And that’s been confirmed. And everybody understands that together we stopped the number one state sponsor of terror from obtaining the world’s most dangerous weapons.
And if you think about it, if we didn’t do that and assuming we made the same deal that we have today, there’d be a dark cloud over this deal. And number one, it wouldn’t happen because the other Arab and Muslim nations really wouldn’t feel comfortable making the deal that we have now, right?
If Iran had that nuclear weapon that they were about two months away from having, they would have had it in two months or maybe less than that. They were right. This was our last shot. They looked at it for 22 years. This was our last shot. The pilots told me that they said 22 years, sir. They looked at it. Our predecessors looked. They studied it three times a year, would do drills on that exact attack. And boy, did they get it right. But let’s assume they didn’t.
And let’s assume there was large scale nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran. We wouldn’t be here today, even if we signed the deal, which we couldn’t do because a lot of people would not want to have anything to do with it.
We took a big cloud off of the Middle East and off of Israel.
And it was my honor to to help. Isn’t it true, though, that can you imagine the same documents, everything the same, but you had somebody out there that was – in the opinion of everybody- all-powerful in the Middle East (re: the Islamic Republic of Iran).
They took a big hit, didn’t they? Didn’t they take a big hit? Boy, oh, boy, they got it from one side for the other. And, you know, it would be great if we could make a peace deal with them. Would you be happy with that? Wouldn’t it be nice? I think they want to. I think they’re tired.
Somebody said, sir, they’re starting their nuclear program again. I said, let me tell you something. They’re not starting anything. They want to survive. The last thing they want to do is start digging holes again in mountains that just got blown up and start.
They want to survive. OK, but I think we have a chance. Steve, you and Jared, I’ll call you back for another one. We always bring Jared when we want to get that deal closed. We bring Jared.
But Steve, you and Jared and the general and Pete and Marco: You’ll get that deal (with the Islamic Regime in Iran) done easy. I think that’ll be easy. But first we have to get Russia done. We got to get that one done.
If you don’t mind, Steve, let’s focus on Russia first. We’ll get it done.
In Lebanon, the dagger of Hezbollah long aimed at Israel’s throat has been totally shattered.
My administration is actively supporting the new president of Lebanon and his mission to permanently disarm Hezbollah’s terror brigades.
He’s doing very well and build a thriving state at peace with its neighbors.
And you’re very much in favor of that. I know. Good things are happening.
And with this week’s ceasefire, we’ve achieved the most challenging breakthrough of them all.
The most challenging breakthrough, maybe ever. I mean, I’ve never seen anything like I’ve been involved in a lot of success.
I have never seen anything like what’s going on today all over the world. People are dancing in the streets, not just in Israel.
They’re dancing in the streets of countries that would have never danced in the street about what’s happening today.
They’re dancing in those streets. So this long and difficult war has now ended.
You know, some people say (it’s been going on for) 3000 years. Some people say 500 years, whatever it is.
It’s the granddaddy of them all. And in an unprecedented achievement, virtually the entire region has endorsed the plan that Gaza will be immediately demilitarized, that Hamas will be disarmed.
And Israel’s security will no longer be threatened in any way, shape or form.
So Israel, with our help, has won all that they can by force of arms. You’ve won. I mean, you’ve won.
Now it’s time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East.
It’s about time you were able to enjoy the fruits of your labor.
Mr. Opposition Leader (Yair Lapid), I said he’s a very nice opposition leader. (Laughter)
He’s a nice man. He’s a nice man. He knows what he’s doing. (Laughter)
Very nice guy. Well, now you can be a little bit nicer, Bibi, because you’re not at war anymore. (Laughter, applause
But only by embracing the opportunities of this moment can we achieve our goal of ensuring that the horrors of recent years will never happen again.
You don’t want to have to go through this again. Eight years ago, I came to this region on a very special first trip abroad as the president of the United States.
I came here very early at your request. I addressed the leaders of the Arab and Muslim world gathered in Saudi Arabia and said that it was time to build a future free of the grip of extremism and terror.
And interestingly, right now, as soon as I’m finished, I’m quite late. You’ve kept me quite late between opposition leaders and Bibi’s brilliant but very long speech. (Laughter)
I thought I was going to run up here, make a speech and then head to Egypt. It didn’t work out, though. (Laughter)
And you made a pretty long one, too, sir. (Laughter, applause)
But I liked what you all said. It could be worse. (Laughter)
Supposing on top of it, I didn’t like what you said. That would know that would be no good. Ron, would it? You did a great job, by the way, Ron (Dermer, Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs).
So I’m going to be meeting actually in a little while. I’m going to be meeting with the most powerful, the richest nations really in the world, although now with the tariffs, the United States is by far the richest nation in the world, as you probably have been reading.
But the richest nations, most powerful nations, you know, tremendous, tremendous, headed by some tremendous people.
And many cases, some cases I wouldn’t say necessarily I would endorse. But I will tell you some incredible people that really helped us make this all possible.
So I’ll be going there. I’ll be quite late. They might not be there by the time I get there, but we’re going to give it a shot.
But the journey we started back then led to the crushing defeat of the ISIS caliphate, to the monumental Abraham Accords and ultimately to the historic ceasefire this week in which many of those same nations really played it.
That a very pivotal role. I have to tell you, Steve will tell you that Jared will tell you that together we’ve shown that peace is not just a hope that we can dream about.
It’s a reality we can build upon day by day, person by person and nation by nation.
And because of that, the Middle East is finally ready to embrace its extraordinary potential. You have extraordinary potential in this region.
It should now be clear to everyone throughout the region that decades of fomenting terrorism and extremism, Jihadism and anti-Semitism have not worked. They haven’t worked. They’ve been a disaster. They’ve just killed. They’ve killed. They’ve backfired completely and totally. They’ve just totally backfired. Everything that you thought, worst case, it’s turned out to be worse than that. They have not worked. From Gaza to Iran, those bitter hatreds have delivered nothing but misery, suffering, failure and death.
They’ve served not to weaken Israel but to annihilate the very forces that did the most to foment this hatred. And it’s really, I mean, everybody that’s tried it has become irrelevant.
Meanwhile, we’ve seen those nations that set aside their differences, reached across ancient divides and pursued engagement are now among the most successful in the region.
They’re getting along with Israel and they’re doing great.
And I can tell you, the four nations that joined the Abraham Accords early on – and you’d all be doing me a favor, and I’m going to be saying this a little while to some other friends- we’d love you all to – Is this right, Jared? – Join up in the Abraham Accords. We have to join up and get together. You can have that whole thing filled out.
We had a very weak administration, worst president in the history of our country by far. And Barack Obama was not far behind, by the way. (Laughter, applause)
They did nothing with this incredible document, the Abraham Accords. But now you can fill them up. Now you have peace. You have people that really like Israel. And they like Israel a lot more today than they did even five weeks ago. You’ve come back. You’ve come back strong because it was getting to be a little nasty out there in the world. And ultimately, the world wins. You can’t beat the world. Oh, I would say to Bibi, “Bibi, it’s now time.”
And he understood it better than anybody, because ultimately, you know, the world’s a very big place. And I’ve said a lot, this piece of land is very small
It’s unbelievable. And you’ve done with that tiny. You look at a map, even of just not the world, the Middle East. And you have this little dot. And think of what you’ve done. It’s incredible. (Cheers, applause)
It’s incredible. But the world is loving Israel again. And I said to Bibi, the world is big and it’s strong.
And Ron, ultimately, the world wins. And we don’t have to worry about that now. But there was getting to be a period of time over the last few months. you know, the the world wanted peace and Israel wanted peace. Everybody did. Everybody did.
And what a victory it’s been. Right? What a victory it’s been.
If you would have gone on for three, four more years, keep fighting, fighting, fighting, It was it was getting bad. It was getting heated. The timing of this is brilliant. And I said, Bibi, you’re going to be remembered for this far more than if you kept this thing going, going, going. Kill, kill, kill. It would be not it would not be the same. (applause)
And I just want to congratulate you for having the courage to say, that’s it. We’ve won. And now let’s enjoy our lives and let’s rebuild Israel and make it stronger and bigger and better than it’s ever been before. You’re going to do that. Took a lot of guts.
And the choice for Palestinians could not be more clear. This is their chance to turn forever from the path of terror and violence – It’s been extreme – to exile the wicked forces of hate that are in their midst. And I think that’s going to happen. I’ve met some people over the last couple of months that want to see it happen very much. And after tremendous pain and death and hardship, now is the time to concentrate on building their people up instead of trying to tear Israel down. We don’t want that to happen again.
The total focus of Gazans must be on restoring the fundamentals of stability, safety, dignity and economic development so they can finally have the better life that their children really do deserve, after all these decades of horror.
I intend to be a partner in this effort in the sense that we’re going to help and we’re going to do something that became unbelievably popular. Everybody wants to be on it. It’s called the “Board of Peace.” How about that? Is that a beautiful name? A “board of peace”?
The only bad thing from my standpoint, every single nation involved has asked me to be the chair. And I’ll tell you, I’m very busy. I didn’t count on that. But you know what? If we do it, we’ll do it right. And we have unbelievable power and wealth because you’re going to need wealth. You’re going to need wealth to rebuild things. And they have wealth like few people have wealth.
I want to thank the Arab and Muslim nations for their commitment that they’ve made to support a safe rebuilding of Gaza and beyond. I have many Arab countries, very wealthy countries that came up and said we’ll put up tremendous amounts of money to get rebuilt, to rebuild Gaza. And I think that’s going to happen. The power they want, dignity they want to come forward and they want to say.
And I want to say who they are, because what they’re doing is going to be, I think, something that you’re going to be very impressed with, Bibi, and you need that. You need the kind of economic power that they have, and they want to see it work and they want to see it be safe and they want to see it be good for Israel, too.
And as much money as it will be. And it’s a lot, as you can see, it’s a lot for these countries, it’s relatively little relative to their worth. It’s really a lot of money, like money, like most people could never even conceive, but for these countries, it’s not that much, especially because it ensures success and stability in the Middle East, which is what they want to see.
So many of them will be with us in Egypt in a little while. I think. I’m not sure. They may be gone. They may have taken their Boeing 747s and left. (Laughter)
I said, what kind of a plane do you fly? I said, that’s a large plane. Steve, do you think they’ve left on their brand new Boeing 747s? I don’t know. We’re going to find out soon. It’s going to be a big story.
There’ll be two people left and they’ll be the two poorest ones. Laughter)
But it will be the wealthiest and most powerful group of nations.
So the group that we have assembled is the wealthiest and most powerful group ever assembled at one time. There has never been a group like this and they’re only looking for good. They want good. They’re going to do good. And as those commitments are made, I’m going to let the world know who’s doing it because they really deserve to get the credit. And some of them probably won’t want the credit, but they deserve it.
It’s more obvious than ever that the productive and responsible nations of this region should not be enemies or adversaries.
You should be partners and eventually even friends. And that’s what’s going to happen. I know it. Together, you can stand against the forces of chaos. Yeah, you go ahead. (applause) That’s important. Because you can stand against the forces of chaos, that threatened all of your interests. And it’s always a big threat, always a big threat and unleash incredible prosperity and opportunity for all the people of these lands. And that’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to unleash numbers and success, the likes of which Israel has never been able to think of because you’re so firm and you should be. And you’ve done the right thing in defending yourself. You’re not going to have to worry so much about it.
You’ve won and now you can build and you can do things that you never even thought possible.
When you put that genius into doing something else, it’s going to be something that’s it’s going to be a miracle.
The miracle in the desert. It’s going to be amazing. And it already is in a true sense.
But it’ll be wonderful when you can spend time thinking about (things) other than war and defense and offense. To that end, it’s my firm hope and dream, frankly, that together the Abraham Accords will turn out to be everything that we thought they would.
Those four countries were very, very brave in doing it. They did it at a very early point. And every single one of them benefits unbelievably financially. And if you noticed, even in this bad period that we just went through, they all remained a member of the Abraham Accords.
They’ve done unbelievably well. And I just and you know who you are. And I want to thank you. And they’ve stayed because of loyalty, but they’ve also stayed because it was really good business. They’ve made a lot of money being members. And you’re going to all… I hope that everyone of I hope that every one of the countries that we’re seeking, Jared, I hope they join quickly. No games, no nothing. Just join. Get in. It’s going to be a great peacemaker. It’s really going to bring it together beyond any anybody’s wildest dream.
So instead of building fortresses to keep enemies at bay, the nations of this region should be building infrastructure to weave your commerce closer together, because you’ve got to compete with a big world out there in commerce. Now it’s a different kind of competition.
Instead of making weapons and missiles, the wealth of this region should flow to schools and medicine, industry, and frankly, the new hot thing, artificial intelligence. It’s a lot of intelligence you’re going to have to be throwing off to pay back these sums of money, but that’s that’s really the hot one.
And I might say that the United States a year ago was a dead country. I say it to people. I heard it first from the king of Saudi Arabia. I then heard it from UAE. I heard it from Qatar. I heard it from many other countries. A year ago, the United States of America was a dead country.
Now it’s the hottest country anywhere in the world. It is the hottest. There’s no question about it.
In fact, if you go back a year ago before the election, although once we had November 5th, we became hot because people got it.
I would say November 5th was a time that we became really hot.
But once you go back a couple of years, Nobody asked Joe Biden to come up and speak. I guarantee you that. And if they did, he would have turned him down.
I promise you he didn’t speak. He didn’t speak and he didn’t speak well.
But all of the countries in the Middle East, what we what we’re doing now could have happened a long time ago, but it was strangled and set back almost irretrievably by the administrations of Barack Obama and then Joe Biden.
There was a hatred toward Israel. It was an absolute hatred.
The setbacks really started when President Obama signed the Iran nuclear deal.
This was a disaster for Israel and it was a disaster for everyone.
I remember that Bibi Netanyahu came to the United States and worked so hard to try and get Obama not to do that deal. (Applause)
He worked so hard. But it was like talking to a wall.
I remember him telling me, it was like talking to a wall. They wanted to go with Iran.
They chose Iran, frankly, over a lot of other good nations, but specifically Israel.
And that was the beginning of a very bad period of time.
You had Obama go out, and the Iran nuclear deal turned out to be a disaster.
I terminated the Iran nuclear deal and I was very proud to do it. (Applause)
Yet even to Iran, whose regime has inflicted so much death on the Middle East, the hand of friendship and cooperation is open.
I’m telling you, they want to make a deal. That’s all I do in my life. I make deals.
I’m good at it. I’ve always been good at it. (Applause) And I know when they want, even if they said we don’t want to make a deal, I can tell you they want to make a deal. (Laughter)
All right. They do. They want to make a deal. And we’re going to see if we can do something because this is crazy what’s happening.
And we’re not going to have this anymore. Neither the United States nor Israel bear the people of Iran any hostility.
We merely want to live in peace. We don’t want any looming threats over our heads.
And we don’t want to even think in terms of nuclear destruction.
That’s not going to happen. Never will happen.
There’s nothing that would do more good for this part of the world than for Iran’s leaders to renounce terror, stop threatening their neighbors, quit funding their militant proxies and finally recognize Israel’s right to existence. (Applause)
They have to do that. And to Iran – and as you know, this is not said out of weakness.
There’s no weakness. But I’m going to say this, that we are ready when you are.
And it will be the best decision that Iran has ever made. And it’s going to happen. (Applause)
The good people, I know a lot of Iranians in the United States, a good people, smart, hardworking people.
They don’t want to see what’s happened to their country. The story of fierce Israeli resolve and triumph since October 7th should be proof to the entire world that those who seek to destroy this nation are doomed to bitter failure.
The state of Israel is strong and it will live and thrive forever. (Applause)
And that is why Israel will always remain a vital ally of the United States of America.
Israelis share our values, field one of the world’s most powerful militaries. You really do. You have an amazing what a job.
What a job you’ve done. And have one of the most innovative economies on Earth. Those are just a few of the reasons why I’m proud to be the best friend that Israel has ever had. (Applause)
And they all say it in the White House. They all say it. (Applause) I guess it’s true because everybody says it. Maybe you said it today. Thank you.
But as president, I terminated the disastrous Iran nuclear deal. And ultimately, I terminated Iran’s nuclear program with things called B2 bombers. (Laughter)
It was it was swift and it was accurate and it was a military beauty. I authorized the spending of billions of dollars which went to Israel’s defense, as you know.
And after years of broken promises from many other American presidents, you know that they kept promising, I never understood it until I got there. They it was a lot of pressure put on these presidents. It was put on me, too, but I didn’t yield to the pressure. But every president for decades said, we’re going to do it. The difference is, I kept my promise and officially recognized the capital of Israel and moved the American Embassy to Jerusalem.
Isn’t that right, Miriam (Adelson)? Look at Miriam. She’s back there. Stand up. Stand up.
Miriam and Sheldon (Adelson) would come into the office. They’d call me. He’d call me. I think they had more trips to the White House than anybody else. I can’t think of looking at sitting there so innocently. She’s got $60 billion in the bank, (laughter) $60 billion. And she loves… I thinks she’s saying “No, more.”
And she loves Israel, but she loves it. And they would come in. And her husband was a very aggressive man, but I loved him.
He was very aggressive, very supportive of me. And he’d call up. “Can I come over and see you?”
I’d say, “Sheldon, I’m the president of the United States. It doesn’t work that way.” (laughter).
But they were very responsible for so much, including getting me thinking about the Golan Heights, which is probably one of the greatest things to ever happen. (Applause) Miriam, stand up, please. She really is… I mean, she loves this country. She loves this country. Her and her husband are so incredible. We miss him so dearly.
But I actually asked her – I’m going to get her in trouble with this – but I actually asked her once, I said, “so, Miriam, I know you love Israel. What do you love more, the United States or Israel?” She refused to answer. That means… that might mean Israel, I must say. We love you. Thank you, darling, for being here. It’s a great honor. Wonderful woman. She is a great woman. I’ve always stood for the people of this community and I always will. I’ll always be with you. I’m always going to be with you.
I guess maybe something could happen to change my mind. Somebody that’s really stupid gets into office and wants to do really bad things. But that’s about it. And we don’t think we’re going to have that happen. I hope we’re not going to have that happen.
And this man (Benjamin Netanyahu) is a good man right here. These two men (Benjamin Netanyahu and President Chaim Herzog) are good men right here.
I have an idea, Mr. President. Why don’t you give him (Netanyahu) a pardon? Come on. (Cheers, thunderous applause)
By the way, that was not in the speech, as you probably know.
But I happen to like this gentleman right over here (Netanyahu) and it just seems to make so much sense.
You know, whether we like it or not, this has been one of the greatest wartime presidents.
This is what been one of the greatest wartime presidents and – (corruption charges over) cigars and champagne?
Who the hell cares about that? (Cheers, thunderous applause)
All right. Enough controversy for the day. Right. It’s actually I don’t think it’s very controversial.
So, you know, I mean… You are a very popular man. You know why? Because you know how to win. (Cheers of “Bibi!”, thunderous applause)
Over the past two years, I’ve met many of the families of the Israelis taken hostage and those that were taken hostage. Unbelievable. I’ve looked into their eyes. I’ve seen the worst nightmares of their suffering. But I’ve also seen something else. The beautiful love of the people, the love of people, frankly, that hold things together. The love that gives you the courage to carry on through thousands of years of persecution and repression and to emerge with the Heart of David.
It’s a Heart of David. It’s that love that’s defeated the enemies of civilization, built this incredible country and this unbelievable economy and forged one of the great democracies of the world.
That is why it’s a true honor to stand here today and address this assembly in your ancient and eternal now capital, Jerusalem.
I’m proud to have helped in that regard. This city and this nation stand as living proof that a much brighter future for this entire region is truly within our grasp.
For thousands of years, Jerusalem has been a home to Christians, Jews, Muslims and people of all ethnicities and creeds.
This is the holy center of the world’s three great “Abrahamic” faiths. I like that, too.
Adorned with their sacred sites and alive with their pilgrims and visitors from every corner of the globe.
But here between the Western Wall, the Temple Mount and the hill called Calvary, people of every faith and background live, work, pray, serve and raise their families side by side.
And they do it with love. This example is just one of the modern miracles that Israel has given to the world.
And just in closing, the leaders in this chamber know better than anyone else the challenges of this harmony. And it’s been easily won? No, it hasn’t. It has not been. It’s been so tough.
But it has been, some say, a miracle. What you’ve done is a miracle. (applause)
Look at your size. Look at your chances when it all started.
And, you know, if you think about it, you are safer today, stronger today and more respected today than at any time in the history of Israel. Think of it.
People used to say (Israel) wouldn’t exist. They don’t say that anymore, do they? Yet, if safety, security and coexistence can thrive here in the winding alleys and ancient paths of Jerusalem, then surely peace and respect can flourish among the nations of the broader Middle East.
The God who once dwelled among his people in this city still calls us in the words of Scripture, to turn from evil and do good to seek peace and pursue it.
So he still whispers truth into the hills and knolls and valleys of his magnificent creation.
And he still writes hope into the hearts of his children all over the world.
And that is why even after 3000 years of pain and conflict, the people of Israel have never given up from the threats to Zionism, from all sorts of threats.
You want you want the promise of Zion. You want the promise of success and hope and love and God.
And the people of America have never lost faith in the promise of a great and blessed future for all of us.
From the very first day that modern Israel was founded, we have stood together through thick and thin, of setbacks and through victory and defeat, through glory and heartache. We have built industries together. We have made discoveries together. We have confronted evil together and we have waged war together. And perhaps most beautifully of all, we have made peace together.
And this week, against all odds, we have done the impossible and brought our hostages home.
So now we’re going to forge a future that is worthy of our heritage.
We’re going to build a legacy that all the people of this region can be proud of.
New bonds of friendship, cooperation and commerce will join Tel Aviv to Dubai, Haifa to Beirut, Jerusalem to Damascus and from Israel to Egypt, from Saudi Arabia to Qatar, from India to Pakistan, from Indonesia to Iraq, from Syria to Bahrain. Turkey to Jordan, the United Arab Emirates to Oman and Armenia to Azerbaijan – Another war that I just settled (laughter) – We are going to have hope, harmony, opportunity and happiness here in the spiritual and geographic center of the entire world. That’s what you are.
Israel, America and all of the nations of the Middle East will soon be safer, stronger, greater and more prosperous than ever before. (applause)
And I want to thank you all once again for this exceptional honor. This has been truly an honor. It’s seldom that a president is invited to do this. applause)
And I love Israel. I’m with you all the way. (cheers, applause)
You will be bigger, better, stronger and more loving than ever before.
Thank you very much. God bless you. God bless the United States of America and God bless the Middle East.
Thank you, everybody. Good luck. Thank you very much.
Thank you. (Applause), chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!”)
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