Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, sat down Thursday for an interview about the key conflicts and challenges Israel faces today, including the conflicts with Iran and Gaza. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Why did Israel strike Iran now?

In 1923, Adolf Hitler started talking about menacing his neighbors and taking over the countries around Germany. It took him 15 years to build his political and military power. And during that time, there was one man, Winston Churchill, who was warning the Allies that this man was a menace and that he was going to cause a world war.

Instead, Hitler was appeased. They said, “he’s not really going to do it.” He then started seizing territory. Then they said, “that’s OK, we’ll let him have that and then it’ll be over.”

And we ended up with the Second World War: 65 million dead, 6 million Jews gassed in the gas chambers.

We should have learned a lesson then, that when somebody says, “I’m going to kill you,” you have to believe them. And had we not appeased Hitler, history would have been different.

President (Donald) Trump sent a letter to the Ayatollah (Ali Khamenei), and he said, “Look, we’re going to negotiate for 60 days. You can make a choice. You can either dismantle your nuclear program yourself in a deal through negotiations without any military activity, or it can be done the other way through a military strike.” Now, they’ve dragged out these negotiations for 60 days.

Now, why did the president say 60 days? Why didn’t he say six years or six months? Because it’s clear to him, as he said on the plane coming back from the G7, that (Iran is) racing towards a nuclear bomb. They’re at 60% enrichment? If you go to 90% — which is actually a tiny part of the process (from 60% to 90%) — that’s weapons grade. And then you pair it with a delivery system, you’ve got a nuclear bomb, and they have enough of this enriched material for nine bombs.

But, a lot of their facilities and delivery systems were damaged during the recent strikes. Not enough, but a lot. We’ve taken out the main center of Natanz, where they were enriching uranium. We’ve taken out another center at Isfahan, where they did conversion of material into the yellow cake material that goes into the nuclear bomb. We have a number of other sites that still have to be taken out.

Define what would be “enough.”

Enough would mean that they no longer have a path for years to come. We must do what it takes militarily to ensure they cannot develop a nuclear bomb. It means taking out their nuclear sites. It means taking out their facilities, their production sites for centrifuges and for the enrichment of uranium, the delivery systems, the weaponization systems. It means that that has to be permanent enough that no government in Iran will ever make a choice again to go in that direction.

What should Americans know about Israel’s role in protecting America’s best interests in the Middle East?

The Chancellor of Germany said something fascinating the other day. When he was asked about the war, he said Israel is doing the dirty work for all of us. He said, Iran is a regime that has caused murder and mayhem, death and destruction around the world. He said if Israel wasn’t doing it, everybody else would have to do it sooner or later.

Israel is doing the dirty work for Western civilization. That was his language. And, the truth is, for us, we’ve chosen to do it.

You lost a son in 2023 in Gaza. So, you know what that is like to lose someone close to you during this conflict. It’s a feeling that never heals. And some people want to believe that Israel only has compassion and care for those in Israel.

I cared about the Palestinians living next to me before I lost my son. I care about people. Israel cares about people. We don’t want confrontation with anybody. But we have to get our head around this fact that there are people who want to destroy the state of Israel and who fundamentally believe that we don’t have a right to exist.

Is Israel seeking more involvement from the United States in the conflict with Iran? What specifically does Israel want the United States to do and not do?

We’ve put all the contingencies in front of President Trump and his administration. He will make a decision about where he comes in and if he comes in, for these contingencies.

But I have to tell you something: We accomplished in three days what Russia has not accomplished in three years in Ukraine. We achieved air supremacy over Iran in three days. And we’re a tiny little country. Iran is 75 times the size of Israel. Russia is four times the population and 28 times the size of Ukraine and still has not achieved air superiority over Ukraine. So, we have a few tricks up our sleeves.

The United States wrongly declared that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in 2003. There are people who are out saying that Israel similarly is wrong and that Iran is not developing weapons of mass destruction. How do you respond?

We know that Iran is developing weapons of mass destruction. Our intel is very clear. And, by the way, the day before the 60 days were up, the International Atomic Energy Agency issued a damning report that basically vindicated everything that our prime minister has been saying for 15 years. They are marching (toward) a nuclear weapon. So, imagine that you have to deal with the Houthis and Hamas and other terror proxies operating under a nuclear umbrella. The whole world changes. That means Iran takes hegemony over the Middle East. That means China takes hegemony over the Middle East, because China and Iran are extremely close.

What about the university students and these protests across the world that show there are so many sympathetic toward the Palestinians. They say that Israel is the bully and is in the wrong, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of genocide. How do you respond?

You mentioned my son before. Let me tell you, if we were guilty of what we’re being accused of doing, my son would be alive today. My son led troops into Gaza to get our hostages out and to stop Hamas from firing missiles into our cities on foot. If we strafe-bomb population centers, if we just sent our artillery to bomb the smithereens out of them, my son would be alive today. But he led his troops on foot, and he went into a booby trapped house that came crashing down on top of him, killing him and three of his command team blowing the legs off five of his command team that were on the other side of the wall. This is a libel. Just like the Middle Ages when they said that we use blood in our matzos for Passover and our wafers. We don’t do that. We don’t do genocide.

And on the issue of the Palestinians. We have been withdrawing now for 30 years. We’ve been negotiating. We step back, we give them more autonomy, we give them more power, we give them a path to Palestinian statehood. And what have we gotten? The First Intifada and the Second Intifada. School buses being blown up, Molotov cocktails being thrown every day, and shooting attacks on our civilians.

And after the Holocaust, we’re not going to lose our strength. We don’t have a second chance. We saw what happens when we don’t have strength. Jews without power is a death knell.

The conflict in Gaza continues, and some U.S. officials and allies still want a two-state solution. What do you think about that?

“Two-state solution” is a soundbite. It’s “Kumbaya.” Yes, but it’s not two, it’s not state, it’s not a solution. We tried this for 30 years, and it hasn’t worked. So, we can talk about autonomy, we can talk about growing the Human Development Index, we can talk about all sorts of federalism solutions and so on, but it’s just not going to happen. So, we want very much for our Palestinian cousins, brothers, friends, to live in peace and harmony. And we want to see their economic growth improve. And we want to see them live in educational and social peace and harmony. It benefits everyone. But we’re not going to tolerate terrorism.

I was in Israel during the second Intifada. I’ll never forget all of the bodies lying across the ground. At the Golan Heights, I saw a missile land near to where I was. But I don’t live there. What is it like living there with the constant threat of attack?

There are a lot of miracles when it comes to Israel, but the biggest miracle is the resilience of our people. Despite what you described, we come out on the happiness index internationally among the top 10 every year. Last year, even though we experienced Oct. 7, we were No. 4 on the happiness index. Did you know that, of all the … 36 countries in the Organization of Economic Development, which is a list of the developed, richest countries in the world, there’s only one country with replacement fertility. Replacement fertility means that there’s at least 2.1 kids per family. It means that there’s a future. The only developed country in the world with replacement fertility is Israel. And that’s three generations after Holocaust. Tell me if you don’t believe in miracles, that’s the resilience of the Israeli people.

Armstrong Williams is co-owner of The Baltimore Sun.