Viral video of Netanyahu is from 2011 and does not show him directly threatening Pakistan’s nuclear capability

The iVerify Pakistan team investigated this content and determined that it is false.

To reach this conclusion, iVerify Pakistan conducted a keyword search to find the original video.

Posts from users on social media platforms since June 14, 2025, shared a video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claiming that he threatened Pakistan, saying his goal is to prevent Iran and Pakistan from acquiring nuclear weapons amid the current Israel-Iran conflict. However, the statement is not recent or related to the ongoing conflict but was made in March 2011 where he conditioned his comment about Pakistan to a Taliban takeover and was not a direct threat.

Nearly 80 people, including top army officers, were killed while civilians were among over 300 wounded in Iran as a result of Israel’s strikes on military sites and private residences on June 13. Iran subsequently launched its own retaliation with ballistic missiles fired at Israel and the two countries continued to exchange a volley over the weekend.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed “complete solidarity” with Iran while Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said that Pakistan would “safeguard Iran’s interests” amid the conflict.

HOW IT STARTED

On June 14, a post on X by a user, describing himself as a journalist associated with a major news outlet, shared a video of Netanyahu with the following caption: “After Iran, Pakistan … Netanyahu’s threat.”

In the video, Netanyahu can be heard saying: “The greatest mission that we have is to prevent the militant Islamic regime from meeting up with nuclear weapons — or from nuclear weapons meeting up with the Islamic regime. The first is called Iran, and the second is called Pakistan. Because if these radical regimes have nuclear weapons, they will not obey the rules that have been obeyed in the last almost seven decades.”

The post was seen by more than 204,000 people and reshared 1,000 times.

The same video was also shared by multiple other X users, gaining over 77,000, 24,000, and 11,000 views, respectively.

The claim also circulated widely across platforms, appearing in additional posts on X here, here and here and on Facebook as well.

A similar claim was also shared in a text post on Instagram, which received more than 13,000 likes.

METHODOLOGY

A fact-check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its high virality and keen public interest in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran.

A keyword search for “Netanyahu,” “Pakistan” and “statement” yielded to a YouTube video of an interview aired on March 31, 2011, by Israeli news outlet Channel 2 and thus unrelated to the current tensions.

Reviewing the full 27-minute interview showed that Netanyahu made the remarks at the 25:43-minute mark.

However, the viral clip had slightly altered Netanyahu’s remarks since in the original, he said the following about Pakistan at the 26-04-minute mark: “The second is called Pakistan, or more specifically a Taliban takeover of Pakistan.”

His comment was specifying Pakistan to a scenario in which it was taken over by the Taliban, however this part of his comment was edited out from the viral clip. Thus, there was no direct threat from Netanyahu to the Pakistani state amid the recent conflict or even in his original comments.

FACT-CHECK TITLE: FALSE

The claim that a video shows Israeli PM Netanyahu threatening Pakistan and saying his goal is to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons is false.

The viral clip is from 2011, unrelated to the current conflict and does not have a direct threat to Pakistan with Netanyahu conditioning his comment about preventing the acquisition of nuclear weapons to a possible Taliban takeover of Pakistan, with this part edited out of the viral clip.