Israel's former prime minister denounced the idea of offering a military "pause" or cease-fire with Hamas, saying it would be inviting the enemy to rearm, strategize and inflict even more pain on the Israeli people.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Israel is party to an "inevitable war to eliminate Hamas" and that there is no backing down until the terror threat is gone.
"There's no way that we can accept the terrorist state that did what it did on our border," he said, adding a pause will lengthen the war and bring about all the negative repercussions associated with a drawn-out conflict, like the human toll.
He compared it to a scenario in which the Allies would ask Axis powers for a cease-fire in the closing months of World War II.
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"It would be tantamount to, say, January 1945, that the Allies would tell Germany, 'You know what, we're going to pause the war for a few days. Take your time — we don't want to hurt civilians,'" Bennett said.
"And the war would have continued into 1946, 1947. The best way to save lives is to accelerate the war, beat Hamas and this whole nightmare will be over."
Bennett, a member of the New Right Party, told "Hannity" Israel faces an "octopus of terror" whose head is Iran and whose arms include Hamas, Hezbollah and other Islamic Jihad groups.
He said cutting off the arms of the octopus will not end the threat, but that the proverbial head must be taken care of.
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"Those who are fueling it are sitting in Tehran, and they feel immune," he said. "What we need to do is ultimately hit Tehran."
Bennett recounted during his time as prime minister that when malign forces "messed around" with the Jewish State, Quds Force commanders were "assassinated" in Iran.
"There was a drone base in Iran that was bombed, and that's what we need to do, because fighting just the arms — fighting just the arms of the octopus doesn't really make sense," he said.
Of the antisemitic and pro-Palestinian protests in the United States, Bennett said he never believed he could see such vitriol from people living in Israel's top ally.
"I never imagined that on the ground of the United States of America we'd hear people chant effectively ‘kill the Jews,' because that's what ‘from the river to the sea’ means," he said, adding that the one way to rid America of antisemitism would be to eradicate Hamas through "total victory."
"Defeat them, hit them, kill the terrorists, and by doing that, this whole thing will change."
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