Jake Tapper Interviews Israeli Ambassador to the U.S.

Yechiel Leiter skillfully propagates lies and his hate for Palestinians.

I had to go take a shower after listening to this Zionist Nazi stink up the place with his sulphuric lies and subversive hate speech.

Jake Tapper bumped into the reality that this guy actually said and repeats his lie that Israel has not killed any Palestinian civilians, period. Jake stopped short of making this guy say it again in subject/direct object agreement.

Americans need to know that this asshole, Netanyahu and other Israeli officials are accustomed to lying to the Israeli media and public and calculate they can go on American TV and lie to the American people too.

That's why this genocidal Zionist Supremacist maniac is comfortable telling CNN and the American people incredible lies in our faces.

Leiter is confident that Tapper and Americans will believe his lies that Israel doesn't target or kill civilians and that Israel is the most moral army in the world.

It is essential for Americans to know that Israeli Zionist Supremaists such as Leiter and Netanyahu are atheists who do NOT subscribe to Judaism, as Judaism forbids ALL OF THEIR HEINOUS CONDUCT.

Yechiel Leiter skillfully propagates lies and his hate for Palestinians.

Transcript 8/26/2025

TAPPER: All right. Oren Liebermann in Tel Aviv, thank you so much.

Joining us now, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter. Ambassador Leiter, thanks so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. So, we see a lot of Israelis clearly frustrated.

We're told, and you correct me if I'm wrong with any of these assertions I'm about to make, that Hamas signed on to this ceasefire and hostage deal more than a week ago, put forward by the Qataris and the Egyptians, and we're told that it's largely in line with what Israel previously had agreed to. So, what is the holdup and can you guarantee that the remaining 20 hostages who are still alive will come back to Israel soon?

YECHIEL LEITER, ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: Well, we can't guarantee that the 23 hostages will come back soon. They're being held by Hamas. We can guarantee that we're going to do everything in our power to get them out.

We started this, there were 255 hostages being held by Hamas. Under Prime Minister Netanyahu's leadership, 205 have been released through negotiation and through military pressure. We've never achieved any release of hostages without military pressure alongside with negotiations.

So, this is under discussion. We're looking at what the possibilities are for a ceasefire, a temporary deal. But at the same time, it has to be very clear this war ends when Hamas ends. We need to see this war end where Hamas is disarmed, where Gaza is demilitarized, and all of our hostages are out. None of this -- as the president has said repeatedly, none of this drip, drab kind of thing, a few hostages now, a few hostages later. If we are not careful, what's going to happen is we're going to get a few hostages out now and we're never going to see the rest of the hostages again.

TAPPER: So the Arab League several weeks ago called for Hamas to surrender and to no longer be in charge of Gaza, right? Whatever happened to that? Has there been sufficient pressure on Hamas from the Arab League to achieve that to end this war?

LEITER: Well, there was a great declaration by the Arab League and I think that is a very positive development overall for the Middle East, which probably is a result of our taming and our degrading Iran and the extremists in the Middle East. But, no, they haven't applied the necessary pressure if they could.

The interesting thing is that we've seen this before. We're both old enough to remember when we defeated the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon in 1982, '83, and Hamas' predecessor, Yasser Arafat, left. He laid down his arms and left by boat. This is the same thing that can happen today. Hamas has to leave. We're not going to go back to a situation like on October 6th when the country was being held hostage. We cannot have a situation where the country is being held hostage by jihadists living at our border.

TAPPER: But what is the holdup? Like why -- I mean, if this agreement, as we're told basically is 98 percent of what Israel agreed to a month ago, and Hamas has agreed to it, why isn't this been agreed to so there can be a ceasefire?

LEITER: Well, isn't this interesting? I mean, the answer is in your question itself. Israel --

TAPPER: It's the 2 percent.

LEITER: If Israel agreed to it two months ago, what happened? Where was Hamas? Obviously, something's changed in the ingredients and Hamas is moving in such a way so that they remain standing, okay? They've reconstituted themselves through the lull in the fighting. They've reconstituted themselves. They've moved up to 25,000, 30,000 fighters. They are now regrouped in an area of 25 percent of Gaza. That has -- and that's where the hostages are. And that remaining 25 percent has to be completely disarmed. We want to see Hamas out, because otherwise the country's going to go back in a situation where we're going to be held hostage again. We can't do that.

TAPPER: So, Netanyahu, the prime minister --

LEITER: Excuse me one second, Jake.

TAPPER: Yes.

[18:35:00]

LEITER: Under a situation when we were held hostage on October 6th, 1,200 of our people were slaughtered. We can't go back into that scenario.

TAPPER: I understand. Let me ask you about the horrific events from yesterday. Prime Minister Netanyahu called the Gaza strike that killed five journalists, he called it a tragic mishap. You posted on Twitter or X, quote, President Dwight Eisenhower once said, war is a grim, cruel business, a business justified only as a means of sustaining the forces of good against those of evil, wars especially grim when fighting a death cult like Hamas.

But I do wonder at this point, 18 months into it, with so much of Hamas degraded, so much of Gaza destroyed, so many unnecessary or so many tragic, innocent people killed the killing of journalists, the killing of aid workers, children starving to death, this is not what you are trying to achieve, you argue, but it is being -- it is happening anyway. Is it worth it at this point? Are you not afraid of what Israel is doing? And also the status of Israel, many supporters of Israel are worried that it's becoming a pariah.

LEITER: Many supporters of Israel don't have to face what we face in the Middle East. Look, you got to ask yourself a question. A country that's capable of taking out the control of all of Iranian airspace in 72 hours, allowing for the B-2s of the United States to come in and obliterate the nuclear weapons operations in Iran is not capable of ending this war sooner? Of course we are, but it's because we're taking precautions that no other country has ever taken. No other country has had to face a situation of 450 miles of terror tunnels under an area that's 24 miles long.

We're dealing with a ghoulish, fiendish organization that's not only hiding behind civilians but it's using civilians as cannon fodder. They enjoy this is a death cult. They say this. You have to read their stuff. They're a death cult that appreciates the fact that people die. So, they put them out in front. They want to see as many people die. By the way, the numbers that you're quoting are Hamas Ministry of Health numbers. I mean, that's like saying that MS-13 officials are issuing statements.

TAPPER: The only number I quoted was the five journalists.

LEITER: Well, you know, we're talking about, you said the many non- combatants, the many civilians. If --

TAPPER: You wouldn't dispute that in 18 months Israel has killed thousands of innocent people. I'm not saying you're trying to, but you have.

LEITER: We're actually doing everything we can to avoid it like no one else in the past has. And some experts actually say, we have the lowest non-combatant ratio to combatants that have ever existed in war.

TAPPER: My only point is that it's too many.

LEITER: It's too many who want to end this war. Let's get this war over with. Put the pressure on Mr. Qatari, Mr. Egyptian, come down and say to the Hamas, this is enough, okay? Get out of there. You're not going to get any more support.

You have to understand that, you know, Hamas leadership is sitting in Istanbul. Where the hell is Mr. Erdogan? Why are Hamas leadership sitting in Qatar right now? Why is the international community not saying the leadership of Hamas is being closed down, period?

So they're there. They're leading this campaign of de-legitimization of Israel. It's very P.C. now. You know, Israel's responsible for genocide. Israel's responsible for apartheid. Israel killed children. Everybody kind of jumps on the bandwagon. We don't. We do everything we possibly can. My own son was killed because we do not kill innocent civilians. He went in on foot into Gaza and led the troops at the beginning of the war, was killed when he went into a Hamas booby trap.

If we were doing what we're being accused of doing, okay, maybe he'd be alive today and so many of our soldiers that have died or been alive today, and the demonstrations you showed are only half of the demonstrations. The other half of the demonstrations are families of soldiers who are saying to the prime minister, you have to end this war with a defeat of Hamas, because otherwise we're going back to October 6th.

TAPPER: Before you go Mr. Ambassador, the name of your fallen son?

LEITER: Moshe.

TAPPER: Moshe. May his memory be a blessing. Thank you for being here today.

LEITER: I appreciate that, Jake. Thank you so much.

TAPPER: And I hope that the war ends soon.

LEITER: I do too. Thank you.

TAPPER: Ambassador Leiter, thank you so much. We'll be right back.