U.S. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton meets w/ Benjamin Netanyahu Nov. 20, 2012. Photo: Screenshot

“No one decides for the citizens of Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday, in an exclusive interview with Israel Hayom. The prime minister was responding to a recent article by Jeffrey Goldberg in Bloomberg View that quoted U.S. President Barack Obama as saying that “Israel doesn’t know what its own best interests are.”

Netanyahu said he did not know whether Obama was behind Goldberg’s article, but he stressed: “I think that President Obama knows that the ones determining Israel’s vital interests are the citizens of Israel, and they will be the ones to choose who will protect those interests in the best possible way.”

The prime minister also touched on alleged tensions with Obama during a tour of a Gaza Division base on Wednesday, telling soldiers that “everyone understands that only Israel’s citizens will determine who faithfully represents the vital objectives of the State of Israel.”

Speaking to Israel Hayom, Netanyahu said: “I can see three main objectives. Preventing Iran from arming themselves with nuclear weapons, not going back to the indefensible 1967 borders, and keeping Jerusalem united. These are fundamental objectives.”

“Many people want to support me as prime minister,” he added. “So I am asking them to give me the power to succeed and to lead. We have begun changing things. The horizon is in sight.”