Netanyahu on current status June 2026

 

ראש ממשלת ישראל

@IsraeliPM_heb

Translated from Hebrew

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this evening at a press conference: "Dear citizens of Israel, For decades, I have been fighting Iran's efforts to arm itself with nuclear weapons. I can define this as the mission of my life. I have stood firm in it until today, and I will continue to stand firm in the future. With an agreement, without an agreement—Iran will not have nuclear weapons. Not today, and not tomorrow. As long as I am Prime Minister of Israel—this will not happen. I hear people asking: What have we achieved? And I answer them: 'What have we achieved'? We have pushed away from us the immediate threat of annihilation. Together with our American friends, we launched the largest attack sortie in Israel's history. We neutralized their nuclear scientists, decapitated the leaders of the terror regime, crushed their nuclear facilities, destroyed missiles and most of the factories that produce missiles, struck countless military industries and infrastructures, destroyed their navy, their air force, neutralized Basij commanders who massacred the Iranian people, inflicted enormous damage—we estimate it at hundreds of billions of dollars, and some estimate it even close to a trillion dollars—enormous damage to Iran's economy that took them decades to build. But here's the most important thing—we saved the State of Israel from the threat of nuclear annihilation. Because it must be understood, Iran was racing toward the nuclear bomb right before 'With a Lion'—it was racing toward the bomb and racing to bury its missile and nuclear industry deep underground. If we had not acted at the time we did, and with the intensity we did—both in 'With a Lion' and then in 'Roar of the Lion'—in historic cooperation with President Trump and the American military—if we had not acted in this way, Iran would already have atomic bombs by now. And what does that mean? It means that millions of Israeli citizens, you who are listening to me now, all of you would have been in terrible danger of mass death. We were all in that danger. And that danger, of the extermination of Israel's population, we have pushed away from us for years. That's what we achieved—we saved the State of Israel from destruction. But I say to you, citizens of Israel, the struggle is not over and done with. We will need to continue to stay vigilant, continue to be strong and determined to defend ourselves as much as required. This is true not only against Iran. It is true also against Iran's terror arms, which we have struck in an unprecedented manner. We did it in Gaza, we did it in Lebanon, in Syria, in Yemen, we did it in the refugee camps in Judea and Samaria—we did it everywhere. We eliminated Deif, Haniyeh and Sinwar along with many of Hamas's leaders. In fact, almost all of them—everyone who was there in that horrific massacre, I think one is left, he will be eliminated too. We destroyed thousands of terrorists and countless terror infrastructures. We brought back all our hostages from Gaza, to the last one. No one believed we would do it. I believed. They told me: Prime Minister, we must concede, don't enter Rafah, end the war. We'll bring back the hostages, we'll frame our exit from Gaza as a victory. I did not accept those nonsensical words. We entered Rafah, we entered the city of Gaza, against the opinion of many—and we brought back all the hostages, to the last one. And not only that, we blew up the pagers, eliminated the tyrant Nasrallah, prevented the Radwan Force's invasion of the Galilee, destroyed the overwhelming majority of the 150,000 rockets and missiles that Nasrallah built to devastate Israel's cities. You remember what they told us—'If we enter into battle with Hezbollah, we'll have tens of thousands of dead, the towers will fall in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, Be'er Sheva. The cities of Israel will become a city of ruins.' You remember that. I did not accept it, we fought them, and how we fought them, we also captured key positions of theirs like Beaufort, from which Hezbollah threatened the northern settlements for years, in fact the entire country. In parallel, we did something else: we established deep security zones around the State of Israel. We did it in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Syria—where, by the way, we eliminated all of Assad's weapons that were a central link in the axis of evil. And I want to make it clear: we will remain in the security zones as long as required to defend our country. Because after October 7, I set a simple principle: Israel will not allow terror organizations to camp on our borders. To dig terror tunnels into our territory, to prepare for massacres near our civilians. Today, our heroic IDF fighters stand between the terrorists and our civilians. In fact, what we did, we changed our entire security doctrine. We changed ourselves too. We broke through the barrier of fear. We initiate, we attack, we surprise, and we strike hard at those who seek our souls. Israel is stronger than ever, and Iran's axis of evil is weaker than ever. If someone had told you, at the beginning of the war, that we would achieve everything I detailed, and I didn't detail everything—you would say he is daydreaming. Well done, security experts, no. We did it. And today, after achieving all this, there are those who want to downplay it, to dismiss our tremendous achievements. And I say to you—we are going to achieve many more great things. We will continue to thwart threats in the arena, we will build new alliances with countries in the region and outside the region. We will ensure our military independence, that's another principle I set and I am allocating an additional 350 billion shekels to the defense budget. We will develop technologies that break the boundaries of imagination, and we will turn Israel into an even stronger power. Because our strength is the key to our future, it is the key to our security, it is the key to our economy, it is the key to our alliances. Because alliances are made with the strong, and Israel today is a very strong country. It is strong thanks to you, citizens of Israel. I want to thank you, citizens of Israel, for your steadfast stance, for the backing you give the government, for the backing you give me as Prime Minister. And above all, I want to thank our heroic fighters and female fighters in the regular and reserve forces, at sea, on land, and in the air. In the IDF and in all security branches. There is none like you, heroes of Israel. Together we will continue to stand, and together we will continue to win. 'Fear not, My servant Jacob, and do not be dismayed, O Israel.' Together, with the help of God, we will ensure the eternity of Israel."

The system that produces trillionaires

Some good points, but also overlooks the basic economics of providing value to the most people.

https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/an-open-letter-to-elizabeth-warren

An Open Letter To Elizabeth Warren About Trillionaires And Inequality

Musk is not the cause. He's the scoreboard. The real story is the game itself.

Quoth the Raven

Jun 14, 2026

Dear Senator Warren,

When I watched your recent video on X about Elon Musk becoming the world’s first trillionaire, I found myself in the unusual position of agreeing with you—at least in part. That is not a sentence I write often.

You see…you are correct that something has gone profoundly wrong in an economy that can produce a trillionaire. You are correct that the gap between the financial elite and ordinary Americans has become so vast that most people can barely comprehend it. And you are correct that millions of Americans increasingly feel as though the economy is rigged in favor of a small group of people at the top.

According to The Wall Street Journal, there are now roughly 430,000 American households worth more than $30 million, including approximately 74,000 households worth over $100 million. The growth of these groups has dramatically outpaced overall population growth over the past several decades.

You are correct that the wealth inequality gap is widening quickly:

Where I part ways with you is on the question of why.

You see Elon Musk’s wealth and conclude that the problem is Elon Musk. I see Elon Musk’s wealth and conclude that the problem is the system that made such wealth possible in the first place. Those are very different diagnoses, and they lead to very different solutions.

The irony is that I suspect we agree on more than either of us would like to admit. I do not believe it is healthy for today’s society to have trillionaires. When comparing Musk’s wealth to the next richest person on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, where the difference in rankings is $20 billion or so among the top 10 richest, there is a massive $800 billion difference. 40 times the average of the rest of the list. That should raise eyebrows.

I do not believe an economy is functioning normally when wealth accumulates on that scale. I do not believe it is sustainable for financial assets to appreciate so rapidly while wages struggle to keep pace. And despite being a Republican who has frequently defended markets, capitalism, and entrepreneurship, I find the emergence of this trillionaire fortune difficult to view as evidence of a healthy economic order.

Source: Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index

But where you see a trillionaire problem, I see a monetary policy problem.

For years, Americans have been told a story about wealth inequality. The story goes something like this: billionaires are getting richer because they are hoarding wealth, exploiting workers, avoiding taxes, and accumulating ever greater control over the economy. There is some truth in parts of that narrative. Human nature has not changed. Powerful people have always sought more power, and wealthy people have always sought more wealth.

What the story leaves out, however, is the role of the institutions that have systematically inflated the value of financial assets for decades. One of the strangest things in American politics is that everyone wants to talk about wealth inequality until the conversation reaches the actual source of it.

The modern American economy is built on a foundation of cheap money. Whenever markets stumble, politicians demand intervention. Whenever economic growth slows, politicians demand intervention. Whenever unemployment rises, politicians demand intervention. The Federal Reserve responds with lower interest rates, asset purchases, liquidity programs, and other mechanisms designed to support economic activity and financial markets.

The result is entirely predictable. More money creation, which leads to more price inflation, which hits financial assets first, which benefits the “haves” and not the “have nots”.

M2 Money Supply

Aside from money creation, when interest rates are pushed lower, investors seek returns elsewhere. Money flows into stocks. Money flows into real estate. Money flows into private equity, venture capital, and speculative assets. Valuations rise. Asset prices rise. Balance sheets expand. The people who own those assets become wealthier, often dramatically so.

The people who rely primarily on wages do not.

This is not a conspiracy theory, it is simply the mathematical reality of how asset inflation works. If stocks rise faster than wages, stockholders become richer relative to workers. If housing prices rise faster than incomes, homeowners become richer relative to renters. If financial assets appreciate because trillions of dollars are flowing into the system, then the people who own financial assets will inevitably pull further away from everyone else.

That is exactly what has happened. As I have recently written about, our public markets have become distorted beyond recognition as a result of money printing. The fundamental rules of economics, math and money no longer apply when trillions can be printed in hours. The Fed has launched us into a reality distortion field and that’s why stocks are the most overvalued they have ever been…and yet liquidity still keeps coming from somewhere.

This overvaluation as a result of money printing is what emboldens bankers, the financial media, exchanges and analysts to tacitly bless one of the most aggressively (and insanely) overvalued IPOs in modern history without batting an eye. It is what made SpaceX “worth” more, quicker, than most other companies before going public, despite hemorrhaging billions in cash instead of turning a consistent profit.

Source: Bloomberg

The wealth gap that concerns you did not emerge from nowhere. It did not appear because Elon Musk woke up one morning and decided to become worth a trillion dollars. It emerged from decades of policies that consistently rewarded ownership of assets more than productive labor. And by new policies being put in place that quickly link unprofitable public companies to the retirement accounts of average Americans.

And this is where your critique becomes frustrating. You identify the outcome correctly. You recognize that wealth concentration has reached extraordinary levels. You understand that many Americans feel excluded from the prosperity they are constantly told exists. Yet when it comes time to identify the cause, your focus immediately shifts to the people benefiting from the system rather than the system itself.

Your solution is a wealth tax. Then it is an AI tax. Then it is another tax. Then another. The underlying machinery is almost never discussed.

What makes this particularly difficult to take seriously is that the policies that contributed to this environment have enjoyed bipartisan support. Republicans share responsibility. Democrats share responsibility. Donald Trump has publicly pushed for lower interest rates. Many Democrats, including yourself, have repeatedly supported monetary policies aimed at stimulating economic activity through easier financial conditions.

The underlying direction has been remarkably consistent: both parties have become dependent on asset appreciation. Both parties celebrate rising stock markets. Both parties fear the consequences of allowing markets to fully clear. Both parties prefer the short-term benefits of easy money to the long-term consequences of asset inflation. And then both parties act surprised when wealth inequality worsens.

So can we just cut the act at this point?

The truth is that Elon Musk is not the architect of this system. He is one of its most successful participants. He did not invent quantitative easing. He did not establish the Federal Reserve’s framework. He did not create an economy in which every financial downturn is met with demands for intervention. He did not spend decades encouraging policies that inflated asset values across the board. He simply rode the wave. But you have to ask, what type of system allows a man to be worth $1 trillion when the sumtotal of all of his companies’ profits dating back decades is barely $30 billion?

You can criticize Musk for his public market hustle. You can criticize his behavior, his politics, his business decisions, or his public statements. But blaming Musk for the existence of the wave itself is like blaming a surfer for the tide. The larger question is why the wave became so enormous to begin with.

Why are valuations reaching levels that previous generations would have considered absurd? Why are financial assets appreciating so much faster than the real economy? Why does every crisis seem to result in more intervention, more liquidity, and more upward pressure on asset prices? Why is it that the people closest to financial markets consistently emerge as the biggest winners?

These are the questions that should be dominating the discussion about inequality. Instead, our politics increasingly revolves around personalities. The billionaire becomes the headline, the outrage becomes the story, yet the underlying incentives remain untouched.

That is unfortunate because I believe your instincts are partially correct. There is something unhealthy about a society that produces trillionaires right now. There is something unhealthy about a system in which asset ownership increasingly determines economic outcomes. There is something unhealthy about a financial structure that appears to reward speculation more aggressively than productive work.

Where you lose me is when you conclude that the answer is simply to tax the visible winners more heavily.

If the machine continues operating exactly as it does today, new trillionaires will emerge. If asset inflation continues to outpace income growth, wealth concentration will continue. If monetary policy remains focused on supporting financial assets whenever they come under pressure, inequality will continue to widen regardless of how many new taxes are created.

You cannot permanently solve a structural problem by targeting its most visible beneficiaries.

That is why your recent comments strike me as an example of getting the right answer to the wrong question. Yes, something is broken. Yes, the gap between ordinary Americans and the financial elite is becoming unsustainable. Yes, the emergence of trillionaire fortunes should force us to ask difficult questions about the economy.

But the first question should not be, “How do we punish the trillionaire?”

The first question should be, “What kind of economic and monetary system produces trillionaires in the first place?”

Until policymakers are willing to confront that question honestly, the cycle will continue. Asset prices will rise. Wealth concentration will increase. Politicians will express outrage. Billionaires will become convenient villains. New taxes will be proposed. And the underlying forces driving inequality will remain largely untouched.

If you genuinely want to reduce wealth inequality, Senator, start with the institutions and policies that inflate asset values across the economy. Start with the monetary framework that has helped make financial assets the primary engine of wealth creation. Start with the bipartisan addiction to easy money and perpetual intervention.

Because if Elon Musk’s trillion-dollar fortune is evidence that something is broken, then the real culprit is not the man standing at the top of the mountain. It is the system that spent decades building the mountain beneath him.

Respectfully yours,

QTR

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