Gaining access to the man who – with the exception of Donald Trump – must be the most heavily protected individual on the planet was never going to be straightforward, but nothing could have prepared me for the ordeal to come.

After being dropped off by taxi just down the road from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, my photographer and I headed for the seven-storey building a minute’s drive from the Knesset in central Jerusalem.

We negotiated the anti-ramming bollards outside and showed our IDs as we passed through a wrought-iron gate and entered a world of scanners and X-ray machines that would put the most exacting airport screening to shame.

As the security checks got under way, we were surrounded by armed guards carrying MI6 assault rifles and, two hours later, I was still there as the Daily Mail photographer had all of his equipment taken apart to ensure that none of it contained explosives.

No one knows about the lethal potential of electronic devices better than the Israelis, who two years ago killed and injured hundreds of members of Hezbollah by triggering explosives concealed in pagers and walkie-talkies.

My interview with Netanyahu had been arranged for 8.30pm on Thursday, but it was past nine by the time I got to the purpose-built studio where our conversation was to take place. There were more armed men, this time special forces troops, masked up and dressed in black.

The prime minister arrived shortly afterwards and, after a warm handshake, motioned me to a chair opposite him at the long oak table that dominated the room.

For a man who has spent the three years since the October 7 attacks negotiating one crisis after another, not least the Flydubai hijack attempt just 18 hours earlier, he looked surprisingly relaxed. Dressed in a dark suit – with an enamel badge of the Israeli flag on his lapel – and a white shirt with a royal blue tie, it was soon clear he meant business. Britain’s Labour Government, he said, was behaving ‘like a rogue state’ and appeasing an ‘Islamist Leftist alliance’.

Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to Natalie Lisbona in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail

He was referring to its decision last month to ban trade with Israeli settlements on the West Bank, which followed Keir Starmer’s decision to withhold some arms licences and to recognise a Palestinian state before all of the October 7 hostages had been freed.

He was particularly incensed by the move because it coincided with Israeli intelligence tipping off our security services about an impending Iran-sponsored ‘murderous attack’ on RAF Fairford.

‘It was stopped. It was prevented,’ he said, adding that, without the intelligence Israel provided, ‘it would probably have gone through and we don’t know how many British lives would have been lost’.

Netanyahu insisted Israel still regarded London as an ally, but then launched an extraordinary broadside against the Government. ‘It’s mind-blowing hypocrisy, I don’t know how many lives we have saved giving Britain information about impending attacks.

‘They’re appeasing, they’re attacking Israel, [the country] that is fighting the terrorists in the terrorist regime that is attacking them. They appease their enemies, and they attack their protectors, really. That’s what’s happening. But this is a twist of both logic and justice. It doesn’t serve Britain well, it doesn’t serve the world well.’

Netanyahu, who confirmed that he is yet to speak to Andy Burnham despite the fact the former Manchester mayor took office in July, went on to accuse Labour of bowing to domestic pressure over its approach to Israel.

‘There is a pressure from inside Britain to appease these various Islamist forces in Britain. And once you start appeasing, you don’t stop. That’s what we learn. Churchill called it the slumber of democracies. And by that he meant the democracy sort of slumbers while their enemies begin to attack them… until they hear the jarring gong of danger.

‘Well, it’s gonging all the way, and they still haven’t woken up.’

Asked how he would characterise relations between the two countries, Netanyahu was equally forthright. ‘Well, it’s not very good, is it? I mean, when they appease our common enemies and attack us, it doesn’t say much.

‘Look, we’re fighting the battle, I call it the Battle of Britain, the Battle of Western civilisation against these barbarians. And there’s so much deception. There’s so much propaganda. I mean, trying to glorify Hamas, trying to glorify the Islamists that have killed Britons. It killed Americans, it killed Israelis. It killed nationals of dozens and dozens of countries.

‘And Israel is painted as this great devil. We’re not the devil. We’re a tiny country fighting here in the heart of the Middle East, not only to protect ourselves, but also to protect the modern Arab states against the Iranian domination and these murderous proxies.

‘We always consider Britain as an ally, even though we have, on occasion, differences with them.’

Dressed in a dark suit – with an enamel badge of the Israeli flag on his lapel – and a white shirt with a royal blue tie, it was soon clear he meant business

He suggested the relationship was in danger of deteriorating to the point where the British Government, ‘in order to ingratiate itself with its political base, has gone rogue. Like a rogue state’.

He argued that Labour should view the ‘Islamist Leftist alliance’ as ‘natural adversaries’.

‘What do these people do? They hang gays, you know, they deprive women of any rights. They murder their own people in Gaza, or Lebanon, or Iran. Executing all their enemies. They are the opposite of democracies. And what does the government in Britain do? It turns on the one democracy that is fighting these monstrous regimes in this terrible state, the worst terrorist state on the planet. That’s what Britain is doing.’

Israel and Britain maintain extensive intelligence ties, particularly when it comes to terrorism, Iran and regional security. But asked whether Israel would continue sharing intelligence, Netanyahu refused to be drawn.

‘I won’t get into that, but we just did,’ he said, referring to the Fairford incident. ‘That’s a fact.’

And that was no isolated example, he says, adding that Israeli intelligence has repeatedly helped protect Britain from attacks.

‘I don’t know how many Britons know how many lives we saved by giving Britain advance information of impending attacks.’ Netanyahu argued that the UK Government was targeting Israel while, in his view, failing to confront their common enemies. This catalogue of public rebukes by such a long-time ally highlights how far relations between Israel and Britain have deteriorated.

He also blamed Labour policies towards Israel for fuelling anti-Semitism. ‘Look, we’ve been there before. The Jewish people have suffered these kinds of vilifications that always, always preceded the most violent attacks on our people during our, you know, centuries of our exile and the various diasporas.

‘And then, of course, it reached a peak in the Nazi Holocaust, which was also preceded with the same lies and the same vilifications… Apparently, this is something we’re going to have to live with in this century, too. The one thing that has changed is that we now have a state. We now have an army. We have security and intelligence agencies that can help us protect ourselves. But in so doing, when we defend ourselves, we also defend our vilifiers. That’s the incredible thing that is happening.’

Turning to Iran, Netanyahu offered a message to Iranians opposing the country’s leadership. ‘This regime will fall. They take time, but they’ll fall. Right now, they’re very weak. President Trump’s blockade is really weakening the IRGC [the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps] a lot. So I’d say, don’t lose faith. Your day of freedom will come.’

But he quickly turned his attention back to Britain, questioning why demonstrators and the Government were not directing greater anger towards Tehran.

‘But what I say to the people in Britain, where are you? Those who are protesting against us? Why aren’t you protesting outside the Iranian embassy? Why don’t you get the full venom of the British Government? Where is it? Why is it not directed against Iran? Why is it not directed against his proxies?

‘Why are you taking this brave, small democracy, fighting as Britain fought against the tyranny that threatened not only Britain, but the entire world. Why are you turning against the one country that is standing in defence of freedom and democracy? Why are you buying all these lies that are perpetrated against us?’

Netanyahu also accused Western governments of focusing their criticism on Israel while failing to recognise the threat posed by Iran. ‘This is a regime in Iran that murdered or maimed tens of thousands of its own citizens. They’re now choking the economies of the West. They’re choking your energy supplies. They’re choking your economies. They’re choking the international waterways.

‘I don’t see the railing of, you know, of rage that is directed against Israel directed there. So it’s completely misplaced. In Israel, which is the defender of civilisation right now.

‘With the help of our American allies, we went against Iran’s nuclear programme. What would have happened if Iran had nuclear weapons now? Think of what they’re doing without nuclear weapons. Just hitting everybody in sight. And choking the world.’

Netanyahu, who confirmed that he is yet to speak to Andy Burnham despite the fact the former Manchester mayor took office in July, went on to accuse Labour of bowing to domestic pressure over its approach to Israel

Given that we’re speaking the day after the dramatic hijack attempt on an airliner flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv, I ask whether he suspects Iranian involvement.

‘As time passes, the picture becomes clearer: the attacker had undergone Islamist radicalisation,’ he replies. ‘He came to crash the plane, along with its passengers. We are investigating whether he was sent, and whoever sent him will pay a very heavy price.’

The incident is all the more poignant for Netanyahu because it occurred around the 50th anniversary of the Entebbe raid, in which his brother Yoni was killed while leading the Israeli operation to rescue hostages from a hijacked Air France airliner in Uganda.

He praised the Israeli passengers who courageously intervened to rescue the Flydubai pilot and regain control of the plane, saying he was ‘amazed’ by their success in preventing a 9/11-style tragedy.

‘If it wasn’t for the extraordinary courage and resourcefulness of this Israeli passenger, you know, the sewage plumber. He heard screams from the cockpit. He ran to the cockpit. The plane was already veering out of control. He was thrust to the side.

‘He apparently managed to open the door because of the Indian pilot’s action, but he still had to move the Indian pilot, this brave pilot, and grab the attacker, the co-pilot, who nearly stabbed this guy to death, and pull him away. He was leaning, actually, he said, on the instrument panel, kicking it. Tried to jam it to make sure that [the plane] goes down.

‘He grabbed him, pulled him back, then grabbed the stick, pulled the stick back, and prevented, you know, that continuous slide down. And he was joined by other Israelis and a crew member. They tied the hijacker with the cord of the headphones in the cockpit. Can you imagine?’

He praised the ‘extraordinary teamwork’ of the plumber and the off-duty pilots who happened to be on board, and described their success in preventing a disaster as ‘so improbable that it almost sounds miraculous, and in fact, it is miraculous’. He added: ‘I served in our special forces. We said, ‘if we have these contingencies, we’ll know what to do’. These are civilians. First of all, I’m not sure that had I been there with my team, my soldiers, we would have done better. But these extraordinarily brave Israelis, you know, they organised the matter.’

Netanyahu will soon have to turn his mind to domestic politics as the electorate head to the polls on October 27, with the sitting PM seeking another mandate after three years of war.

Asked why voters should return him to office, he pointed to his government’s record against Hamas and Hezbollah and its success in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. ‘We could have all been incinerated by now,’ he said, ‘and they are developing long-range missiles.

‘They’re attacking us from the outside, and they’ll attack you from the outside, but from the inside, you have this appeasing the government, that is a very deadly combination.’

In a rare glimpse into the personal toll his political career has taken, Netanyahu admitted that attacks directed at his wife Sara and their children were difficult to endure. ‘I’m used to paying the price, being in public office, but the virulent attacks against my wife, the character assassination, and against my kids, is hard to take. That is hard. I won’t tell you that it’s easy. It’s not.’

By now, I’ve already been warned my 20 minutes are nearly up and, having managed to extract an extra ten, I decide it’s time to bring the interview to a close.

But there’s still time for Netanyahu to launch one final salvo against Burnham’s Britain, this time over the small-boat crisis.

‘I think that if Britain doesn’t regain control over its borders, you will lose Britain,’ he said.

He added that Churchill always thought Britain’s status as an island gave it a great ability to defend itself. ‘I don’t think that’s holding now because of the boats, and obviously, it’s up to the British Government to control that, or to prevent it. It’s possible. But they haven’t asked for our advice, and we haven’t given it.

‘There’s still time for Britain to recover, to regain its senses. I hope that it does, because we’ve had an extraordinary relationship with Britain over the decades, and I’m the first one to regret that it’s… that it’s gone where it’s going.’