Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is back in the spotlight with a defiant video message aimed squarely at critics who accuse Israel of "stealing land" and losing the moral high ground. "The Jewish people are not foreign occupiers in the land of our forefathers," he says, insisting that the territory is the Jewish homeland, known as Judea, and that this is where Jews come from. He goes further, contrasting Israel's situation with classic colonial cases such as the Dutch in Indonesia, and arguing that the real obstacle to peace is the refusal of Israel's enemies to accept its very existence. Netanyahu also makes clear that Israel will not gamble with its own survival just to satisfy those who reject the Jewish people's right to a state of their own.

The remarks follow a pattern Netanyahu has repeated for years, including his 2019 statement that Jews are called Jews because they are the people of Judea, and his sharp reaction to the International Court of Justice in July 2024, when he said the Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land. That same ICJ ruling, however, found that Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank breach international law, and much of the international community still treats the territory as occupied, a view Netanyahu and his allies firmly reject. Supporters sharing the clip online say the message is not a plea for approval, but a statement of fact from a sovereign country that is not asking anyone's permission to remain. Critics counter that historical ties to a land do not settle the legal and political rights of the Palestinians who live there, which is why this debate keeps igniting every time the topic comes up.