The minute Mr. Putin decided to put his military forces in Syria, I went to see him. And I said, "Look, here's what I'm doing. I'm not intervening in Syria. But at the same time, if Syria tries to intervene with us, if Iran tries to use Syria to attack us, we'll stop it.

We will respond with a heavy hand to the brutal murder of Jews who came to pray and were killed by lowly murderers.

They're in the red zone. They're in the last 20 yards, and you can't let them cross that goal line. You can't let them score a touchdown, because that would have unbelievable consequences, grievous consequences for the peace and security of us all, of the world really.

Hamas is ISIS, and ISIS is Hamas. They're branches of the same tree. People who wantonly rocket our cities and want to conduct mass killings. And when they can, they murder children, teenagers, shoot them in the head. Throw people from the sixth floor, their own people. ... They're the enemies of peace, they're the enemies of Israel, they're the enemies of all civilized countries. And I believe they're the enemies of the Palestinians themselves.

I'm not naturally manipulative.

The history of warfare has not yet enabled any army, any civilized army, the army of a democracy like Israel, to be able to deal with a ruthless terrorist enemy that uses civilians as a human shield without having some incidental civilian casualties.

I don't know of any army that does more than an Israeli army does to avoid civilian casualties. But incidental and unintended casualties accompany every war.