Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday night, and slammed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the recent UN report on Gaza. He defended Jewish rights in the land of Israel while expressing willingness to create a demilitarized Palestinian Authority-led Arab state in Judea and Samaria.
Netanyahu began by taking Ahmadinejad to task, at length, for his denial of the Holocaust. He criticized those who remained seated during Ahmadinejad's speech the night before, asking, "Have you no shame, no decency?”
The prime minister went on to discuss Iran within the framework of worldwide terrorism. Terrorists wish to drag humanity back into the Middle Ages, he warned. “The struggle against Iran pits civilization against barbarism... History could be reversed if primitive fanaticism acquires deadly weapons,” he told delegates.
'Will You Accept this Farce?'
Netanyahu then turned to the subject of the recent UN report condemning Israel for its counter-terror offensive in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009. The UN is undermining its own legitimacy by siding with terrorists over their victims, he accused.
"What a perversion of truth. What a perversion of justice,” Netanyahu said of the report.
There is only comparable instance in history in which a civilian populace was targeted by thousands of rockets, he said – the German bombardment of England during the Second World War. Allied forces responded to those attacks by flattening German cities, killing hundreds of thousands of people, he reminded those present. “I'm not here to judge,” he added, “I'm just stating a fact.”
Today's UN would have condemned then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt as war criminals, he said.
UN Bias Hurts Chances for Peace
The UN's criticism of Israeli self-defense does more than just undermine the UN's status, Netanyahu said. By accusing Israel of war crimes over its response to years of rocket attacks, the UN is seriously harming the chances for peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, he warned.
In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza, Netanyahu recalled. Many Israelis agreed to the withdrawal only because they believed that by leaving the territory, Israel would gain international support when fighting aggression from Gaza terrorists, he said. By demonstrating that concessions do not bring international support for Israel's right to self-defense, the UN weakens the chances for similar concessions in the future, he concluded.
We Must Know Now
"Will you stand with Israel," Netanyahu asked, "or will you stand with the terrorists? We must know the answer to that question now. Now and not later. Because if Israel is again asked to take more risks for peace, we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow. Only if we have the confidence that we can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace."
Peace – and Effective Demilitarization
As his speech drew to a close, Netanyahu told those present that Israel is willing to make peace with the PA and with any country that genuinely seeks peace. He pointed to Israel's treaties with Jordan and Egypt as proof of the nation's willingness to compromise for peace.
Peace with the PA will be based on the principle of “two states for two peoples,” he said, a principle outlined by the UN more than 60 years ago. However, he said, the PA must accept “two states for two peoples” as well – by accepting that Israel is the state for the Jewish people.
Jewish rights in Israel must be recognized, he said. "The Jewish people are not foreign conquerors in the land of Israel,” Netanyahu declared.
Finally, Netanyahu declared that Israel is seeking only genuine peace, which means a genuinely demilitarized PA state. A PA state “must be effectively demilitarized. I say effectively because we don't want another Gaza, another south Lebanon, another Iranian terror base... we want peace.”