Last week at the United Nations, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas once again accused Israel of heinous crimes, including \u201cgenocide.\u201d And, once again, the global community demonstrated its collective gullibility. It was left to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Monday to stand at the same lectern before the UN General Assembly and deliver what has become an annual rebuttal to the most preposterous allegations against the Jewish state.<\/p>\n
It was not a cheery speech, but nor was it all doom and gloom. In that half-empty assembly hall \u2013 many delegates, apparently, cannot even bear to listen to the words of an Israeli leader \u2013 Netanyahu took on one accusation after another.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve come here to expose the brazen lies spoken from this very podium against my country and against the brave soldiers who defend it,\u201d he said, holding up the Israel Defence Forces as representative of \u201cthe highest moral values of any army in the world\u201d and insisting that \u201cIsrael\u2019s soldiers deserve not condemnation, but admiration … from decent people everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
He slammed the UN\u2019s Human Rights Council, which he declared an oxymoron.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy investigating Israel, rather than Hamas, for war crimes, the UN Human Rights Council has betrayed its noble mission to protect the innocent,\u201d the prime minister said. \u201cIn fact, what it\u2019s doing is to turn the laws of war upside-down. Israel, which took unprecedented steps to minimize civilian casualties \u2013 Israel is condemned. Hamas, which both targeted and hid behind civilians \u2013 that, a double war crime \u2013 Hamas is given a pass. The Human Rights Council is thus sending a clear message to terrorists everywhere: use civilians as human shields. Use them again and again and again. And you know why? Because, sadly, it works.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then he turned his sights toward Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions. He warned that, while Iran may have softened its tone, its aim is the same as that of ISIS, Hamas and other militant Islamists \u2013 world domination.<\/p>\n
These common dangers \u2013 \u201ca nuclear-armed Iran and militant Islamist movements gaining ground\u201d \u2013 provide an opening for peace between Israel and its neighbors. And not only militarily, but also in terms of regional development.<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether we can strengthen regional security,\u201d said Netanyahu. \u201cWe can advance projects in water, agriculture, in transportation, in health, in energy, in so many fields.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe the partnership between us can also help facilitate peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Many have long assumed that an Israeli-Palestinian peace can help facilitate a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world. But, these days, I think it may work the other way around: namely, that a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world may help facilitate an Israeli-Palestinian peace.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Israel\u2019s prime minister can talk about the potential for \u201cnew opportunities\u201d in the Middle East alongside the dangers, and of \u201cthe indispensable role of Arab states in advancing peace with the Palestinians,\u201d perhaps it\u2019s not so na\u00efve to remain hopeful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last week at the United Nations, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas once again accused Israel of heinous crimes, including \u201cgenocide.\u201d And, once again, the global community demonstrated its collective gullibility. It was left to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Monday to stand at the same lectern before the UN General Assembly and deliver what has become […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[4341,4330,4359,1172,2129,228],"class_list":["post-8042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-ji","tag-binyamin-netanyahu","tag-israel","tag-mahmoud-abbas","tag-palestinians","tag-un","tag-united-nations"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}