Encore: Benjamin Netanyahu Interview
CNN: Glenn Beck
Aired May 9, 2008 - 19:00:00 ET

NETANYAHU: We`re just the first way station en route to you. So there is this fundament fanaticism that is there. It`s a messianic cult. It`s a religious messianic cult that believes in the Apocalypse, and they believe they have to expedite the Apocalypse to bring the collapse of the West…

NETANYAHU: So imagine David Koresh with nuclear weapons. Imagine David Koresh, not with hundreds of followers, but millions of followers, with nuclear weapons, wanting to obliterate America, wanting to obliterate America`s allies, wanting to take over the world`s oil supply.

If the lunatics escape from the asylum, that`s one thing. But if they can get their hands on a nuclear weapon, that`s another. And this is that kind of cult. It`s the cult of the Mahdi, a holy man that disappeared a thousand years ago. And the president of Iran believes that he`s supposed to — he was put here on Earth to bring this holy man back in a great religious war between the true Muslim believers and the infidels. And millions will die in this Apocalypse, and the Muslim believers will go to heaven.

That`s dangerous, if they have nuclear weapons to realize this fantasy. And that is where the world is coming to. Now, people said that of Hitler in the 1930s. They said this man has a mad ideology, very fanatic, very dangerous, and if he gets his hands on a military power, he would use it. Hitler did use it, but Hitler developed atomic weapons, tried to develop them only after embarking on the world conflict.

Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, is first trying to develop nuclear weapons and then going about his mad fantasy of global conflict. So he has to be stopped. I think when you have something as fanatic and as dangerous as this, the question now is not whether he should be stopped, but how`s he going to be stopped?

NETANYAHU: What your father says is absolutely true in the case of deterrable powers. The Soviet Union had enough firepower to destroy the United States, but they realized that you would destroy them, so they were deterred. They were not suicidal.

But militant Islam is suicidal. They often put their zealotry, their ideology above their survival. That`s why you didn`t have any Communist suicide bombers, but militant Islam produces hordes of them, battalions, and they smash into buildings in New York.

Now, do you doubt that if, for example, Al Qaeda had nuclear weapons, this city would not exist today?

NETANYAHU: I think the most important thing to understand is that — you know the best sign of how dangerous things are? That the president of Iran is not even trying to fake it.

You know, normally, if he wasn`t as fanatic as he is, he`d say, “Well, you know, yes, I think we could recognize Israel if it made the right concessions to the Palestinians.” He`d play along; he`d play the game. He`d say, “We`re not really developing nuclear weapons. We just want nuclear energy for peace.” You know, he`d say all that.

But that`s not what he`s saying. He`s saying — and listen to him carefully. He`s saying, “We`re going to wipe Israel off the map. The Holocaust didn`t happen. America`s the great Satan. Iran will have the power to reshape history.”

Now, a normal person would not say that. An insane person says that. In the 1930s, an insane person wrote in a book called, “Mein Kampf,” “My Struggle,” and that was Adolf Hitler. He said exactly what he would do. He was stark-raving mad, but he communicated.

You asked for a sign? That was a sign, 300 pages of signs, OK? Ahmadinejad every day is writing a page. He`s saying what he`s going to do. That`s the best sign. That tells you that there`s a fanaticism at work here which is not even calculating. He`s just going to do it. And let`s not enable him to do it. Let`s stop him.

At least this one gets it.