Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Speech at the United Nations General Assembly
September
29, 2014
Thank you, Mr.
President,
Distinguished
delegates,
I come here
from Jerusalem to speak on behalf of my people, the people of Israel. I've come
here to speak about the dangers we face and about the opportunities we see.
I've come here to expose the brazen lies spoken from this very podium against
my country and against the brave soldiers who defend it.
Ladies and
Gentlemen,
The people of
Israel pray for peace.
But our hopes and
the world's hope for peace are in danger. Because everywhere we look, militant Islam
is on the march.
It's not militants.
It's not
Islam.
It's militant
Islam.
Typically, its
first victims are other Muslims, but it spares no one. Christians, Jews,
Yazidis, Kurds – no creed, no faith, no ethnic group is beyond its sights. And
it's rapidly spreading in every part of the world.
You know the famous
American saying: "All politics is local"? For the militant Islamists,
"All politics is global." Because their ultimate goal is to dominate the
world.
Now, that
threat might seem exaggerated to some, since it starts out small, like a cancer
that attacks a particular part of the body. But left unchecked, the cancer grows,
metastasizing over wider and wider areas. To protect the peace and security of
the world, we must remove this cancer before it's too late.
Last week, many
of the countries represented here rightly applauded President Obama for leading
the effort to confront ISIS. And yet weeks before, some of these same countries,
the same countries that now support confronting ISIS, opposed Israel for
confronting Hamas. They evidently don’t understand that ISIS and Hamas are
branches of the same poisonous tree.
ISIS and Hamas share
a fanatical creed, which they both seek to impose well beyond the territory under
their control.
Listen to ISIS’s
self-declared caliph,Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. This is what he said two months ago:
A day will soon
come when the Muslim will walk everywhere as a master…
The Muslims will cause the world to hear and understand the meaning of terrorism…
and destroy the idol of democracy.
The Muslims will cause the world to hear and understand the meaning of terrorism…
and destroy the idol of democracy.
Now listen to Khaled
Meshaal, the leader of Hamas. He proclaims a similar vision of the future:
We say this to
the West…
By Allah you will be defeated.
Tomorrow our nation will sit on the throne of the world.
By Allah you will be defeated.
Tomorrow our nation will sit on the throne of the world.
As Hamas's
charter makes clear, Hamas’s immediate goal is to destroy Israel. But Hamas has
a broader objective. They also want a caliphate. Hamas shares the global
ambitions of its fellow militant Islamists.
That’s why its supporters
wildly cheered in the streets of Gaza as thousands of Americans were murdered
on 9/11. And that's why its leaders condemned the United States for killing Osama
Bin Laden, whom they praised as a holy warrior.
So when it
comes to their ultimate goals, Hamas is ISIS and ISIS is Hamas.
And what they
share in common, all militant Islamists share in common:
·
Boko Haram in Nigeria;
·
Ash-Shabab in
Somalia;
·
Hezbollah in
Lebanon;
·
An-Nusrah in
Syria;
·
The Mahdi Army
in Iraq;
·
And the Al-Qaeda
branches in Yemen, Libya, the Philippines, India and elsewhere.
Some are radical
Sunnis, some are radical Shi'ites. Some want to restore a pre-medieval caliphate
from the 7th century. Others want to trigger the apocalyptic return
of an imam from the 9th century. They operate in different lands, they
target different victims and they even kill each other in their quest for
supremacy.
But they all
share a fanatic ideology. They all seek to create ever expanding enclaves of
militant Islam where there is no freedom and no tolerance – Where women are treated
as chattel, Christians are decimated, and minorities are subjugated, sometimes
given the stark choice: convert or die.
For them, anyone
can be an infidel, including fellow Muslims.
Ladies and
Gentlemen,
Militant Islam's
ambition to dominate the world seems mad. But so too did the global ambitions
of another fanatic ideology that swept to power eight decades ago.
The Nazis
believed in a master race. The militant Islamists believe in a master faith. They
just disagree about who among them will be the master… of the master faith.
That’s what they truly disagree about. Therefore, the question before us is
whether militant Islam will have the power to realize its unbridled ambitions.
There is one
place where that could soon happen: The Islamic State of Iran.
For 35 years, Iran
has relentlessly pursued the global mission which was set forth by its founding
ruler, Ayatollah Khomeini, in these words:
We will export
our revolution to the entire world.
Until the cry "There is no God but Allah" will echo throughout the world over…
Until the cry "There is no God but Allah" will echo throughout the world over…
And ever since,
the regime’s brutal enforcers, Iran's Revolutionary Guards, have done exactly that.
Listen to its
current commander, General Muhammad Ali Ja'afari. And he clearly stated this
goal. He said:
Our Imam did
not limit the Islamic Revolution to this country…
Our duty is to prepare the way for an Islamic world government…
Our duty is to prepare the way for an Islamic world government…
Maybe he should
spare us those phony tears and have a word instead with the commanders of
Iran's Revolutionary Guards. He could ask them to call off Iran's global terror
campaign, which has included attacks in two dozen countries on five continents since
2011 alone.
To say that Iran
doesn't practice terrorism is like saying Derek Jeter never played shortstop
for the New York Yankees.
This bemoaning
of the Iranian president of the spread of terrorism has got to be one of
history’s greatest displays of doubletalk.
Now, Some still
argue that Iran's global terror campaign, its subversion of countries throughout
the Middle East and well beyond the Middle East, some argue that this is the
work of the extremists. They say things are changing. They point to last year's
elections in Iran. They claim that Iran’s smooth talking President and Foreign
Minister, they’ve changed not only the tone of Iran's foreign policy but also
its substance. They believe Rouhani and Zarif genuinely want to reconcile with
the West, that they’ve abandoned the global mission of the Islamic Revolution.
Really?
So let's look
at what Foreign Minister Zarif wrote in his book just a few years ago:
We have a
fundamental problem with the West,
and especially with America.
This is because we are heirs to a global mission,
which is tied to our raison d'etre…
and especially with America.
This is because we are heirs to a global mission,
which is tied to our raison d'etre…
A global
mission which is tied to our very reason of being.
And then Zarif
asks a question, I think an interesting one. He says:
How come
Malaysia [he’s referring to an overwhelmingly Muslim country] – how
come Malaysia doesn't have similar problems?
And he answers:
Because
Malaysia is not trying to change the international order.
That's your
moderate.
So don’t be
fooled by Iran’s manipulative charm offensive. It’s designed for one purpose,
and for one purpose only: To lift the sanctions and remove the obstacles to
Iran's path to the bomb. The Islamic Republic is now trying to bamboozle its
way to an agreement that will remove the sanctions it still faces, and leave it
with the capacity of thousands of centrifuges to enrich uranium.
This would effectively
cement Iran's place as a threshold military nuclear power. In the
future, at a time of its choosing, Iran, the world’s most dangerous state in
the world's most dangerous region, would obtain the world’s most dangerous
weapons.
Allowing that
to happen would pose the gravest threat to us all.
It’s one thing
to confront militant Islamists on pick-up trucks, armed with Kalashnikov rifles.
It’s another thing to confront militant Islamists armed with weapons of mass
destruction.
I remember that
last year, everyone here was rightly concerned about the chemical weapons in
Syria, including the possibility that they would fall into the hands of
terrorists.
That didn't
happen. And President Obama deserves great credit for leading the diplomatic
effort to dismantle virtually all of Syria's chemical weapons capability.
Imagine how
much more dangerous the Islamic State, ISIS, would be if it possessed chemical
weapons. Now imagine how much more dangerous the Islamic state of Iran would be
if it possessed nuclear weapons.
Ladies and
Gentlemen,
Would you let ISIS
enrich uranium?
Would you let ISIS
build a heavy water reactor?
Would you let ISIS
develop intercontinental ballistic missiles?
Of course you
wouldn’t.
Then you
mustn't let the Islamic State of Iran do those things either.
Because here’s
what will happen:
Once Iran
produces atomic bombs, all the charm and all the smiles will suddenly disappear.
They’ll just vanish. It's then that the ayatollahs will show their true face and
unleash their aggressive fanaticism on the entire world.
There is only one
responsible course of action to address this threat:
Iran's nuclear military
capabilities must be fully dismantled.
Make no mistake
– ISIS must be defeated. But to defeat ISIS and leave Iran as a threshold
nuclear power is to win the battle and lose the war.
To defeat ISIS
and leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power is to win the battle and lose the
war.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The fight
against militant Islam is indivisible. When militant Islam succeeds anywhere,
it’s emboldened everywhere. When it suffers a blow in one place, it's set back in
every place.
That’s why
Israel’s fight against Hamas is not just our fight. It’s your fight.
Israel is
fighting a fanaticism today that your countries may be forced to fight
tomorrow.
For 50 days
this past summer, Hamas fired thousands of rockets at Israel, many of them
supplied by Iran.
I want you to think
about what your countries would do if thousands of rockets were fired at your
cities. Imagine millions of your citizens having seconds at most to scramble to
bomb shelters, day after day.
You wouldn't let
terrorists fire rockets at your cities with impunity. Nor would you let
terrorists dig dozens of terror tunnels under your borders to infiltrate your
towns in order to murder and kidnap your citizens.
Israel justly defended
itself against both rocket attacks and terror tunnels.
Yet Israel also
faced another challenge. We faced a propaganda war.
Because, in an
attempt to win the world’s sympathy, Hamas cynically used Palestinian civilians
as human shields. It used schools, not just schools - UN schools, private homes,
mosques, even hospitals to store and fire rockets at Israel.
As Israel
surgically struck at the rocket launchers and at the tunnels, Palestinian
civilians were tragically but unintentionally killed. There are heartrending
images that resulted, and these fueled libelous charges that Israel was deliberately
targeting civilians.
We were not.
We deeply
regret every single civilian casualty. And the truth is this:
Israel was
doing everything to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties. Hamas was doing everything
to maximize Israeli civilian casualties and Palestinian civilian casualties. Israel
dropped flyers, made phone calls, sent text messages, broadcast warnings in
Arabic on Palestinian television, always to enable Palestinian civilians to
evacuate targeted areas.
No other
country and no other army in history have gone to greater lengths to avoid
casualties among the civilian population of their enemies.
This concern
for Palestinian life was all the more remarkable, given that Israeli civilians
were being bombarded by rockets day after day, night after night. As their
families were being rocketed by Hamas, Israel's citizen army – the brave
soldiers of the IDF, our young boys and girls – they upheld the highest moral
values of any army in the world.
Israel's
soldiers deserve not condemnation, but admiration. Admiration from decent
people everywhere.
Now here’s what
Hamas did: Hamas embedded its missile batteries in residential areas and told
Palestinians to ignore Israel’s warnings to leave. And just in case people
didn’t get the message, they executed Palestinian civilians in Gaza who dared
to protest.
No less
reprehensible, Hamas deliberately placed its rockets where Palestinian children
live and play. Let me show you a photograph. It was taken by a France 24 crew during
the recent conflict. It shows two Hamas rocket launchers, which were used to
attack us. You see three children playing next to them. Hamas deliberately put its
rockets in hundreds of residential areas like this. Hundreds of them.
Ladies and
gentlemen, this is a war crime.
And I say to President
Abbas, these are the war crimes committed by your Hamas partners in the national
unity government which you head and you are responsible for. And these are the real
war crimes you should have investigated, or spoken out against from this podium
last week.
Ladies and
Gentlemen,
As Israeli
children huddled in bomb shelters and Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system
knocked Hamas rockets out of the sky, the profound moral difference between
Israel and Hamas couldn’t have been clearer:
Israel was
using its missiles to protect its children.
Hamas was using
its children to protect its missiles.
By
investigating Israel rather than Hamas for war crimes, the UN Human Rights
Council has betrayed its noble mission to protect the innocent. In fact, what
it’s doing is to turn the laws of war upside-down. Israel, which took
unprecedented steps to minimize civilian casualties, Israel is condemned.
Hamas, which both targeted and hid behind civilians – that a double war crime -
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. You know why? Because sadly,
it works.
By granting
international legitimacy to the use of human shields, the UN’s Human Rights
Council has thus become a Terrorist Rights Council, and it will have
repercussions. It probably already has, about the use of civilians as human shields.
It’s not just
our interest. It’s not just our values that are under attack. It’s your
interests and your values.
Ladies and
Gentlemen,
We live in a
world steeped in tyranny and terror, where gays are hanged from cranes in Tehran,
political prisoners are executed in Gaza, young girls are abducted en masse in
Nigeria and hundreds of thousands are butchered in Syria, Libya and Iraq. Yet
nearly half, nearly half of the UN Human Rights Council's resolutions focusing
on a single country have been directed against Israel, the one true democracy
in the Middle East – Israel. where issues are openly debated in a boisterous parliament,
where human rights are protected by independent courts and where women, gays
and minorities live in a genuinely free society.
The Human
Rights… (that’s an oxymoron, the UN Human Rights Council, but I’ll use it just
the same), the Council’s biased treatment of Israel is only one manifestation
of the return of the world’s oldest prejudices.
We hear mobs today
in Europe call for the gassing of Jews. We hear some national leaders compare Israel
to the Nazis. This is not a function of Israel’s policies. It's a function of
diseased minds. And that disease has a name. It’s called anti-Semitism.
It is now spreading
in polite society, where it masquerades as legitimate criticism of Israel.
For centuries the
Jewish people have been demonized with blood libels and charges of deicide. Today,
the Jewish state is demonized with the apartheid libel and charges of genocide.
Genocide?
In what moral
universe does genocide include warning the enemy's civilian population to get
out of harm's way? Or ensuring that they receive tons, tons of humanitarian aid
each day, even as thousands of rockets are being fired at us? Or setting up a
field hospital to aid for their wounded?
Well, I suppose
it's the same moral universe where a man who wrote a dissertation of lies about
the Holocaust, and who insists on a Palestine free of Jews, Judenrein, can stand
at this podium and shamelessly accuse Israel of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
In the past,
outrageous lies against the Jews were the precursors to the wholesale slaughter
of our people.
But no more.
Today we, the
Jewish people, have the power to defend ourselves.
We will defend
ourselves against our enemies on the battlefield. We will expose their lies against
us in the court of public opinion.
Israel will
continue to stand proud and unbowed.
Ladies and
Gentlemen,
Despite the
enormous challenges facing Israel, I believe we have an historic opportunity.
After decades
of seeing Israel as their enemy, leading states in the Arab world increasingly
recognize that together we and they face many of the same dangers: principally this
means a nuclear-armed Iran and militant Islamist movements gaining ground in
the Sunni world.
Our challenge is
to transform these common interests to create a productive partnership. One
that would build a more secure, peaceful and prosperous Middle East.
Together we can
strengthen regional security. We can advance projects in water, agriculture, in
transportation, in health, in energy, in so many fields.
I 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.
And therefore,
to achieve that peace, we must look not only to Jerusalem and Ramallah, but
also to Cairo, to Amman, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and elsewhere. I believe peace can
be realized with the active involvement of Arab countries, those that are
willing to provide political, material and other indispensable support.
I’m ready to
make a historic compromise, not because Israel is occupying a foreign land. The
people of Israel are not occupiers in the Land of Israel. History, archeology
and common sense all make clear that we have had a singular attachment to this
land for over 3,000 years.
I want peace
because I want to create a better future for my people.
But it must be
a genuine peace, one that is anchored in mutual recognition and enduring
security arrangements, rock solid security arrangements on the ground. Because
you see, Israel's withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza created two militant
Islamic enclaves on our borders from which tens of thousands of rockets have
been fired at Israel.
These sobering experiences
heighten Israel's security concerns regarding potential territorial concessions
in the future. Those security concerns are even greater today.
Just look
around you.
The Middle East
is in chaos. States are disintegrating. Militant Islamists are filling the
void.
Israel cannot
have territories from which it withdraws taken over by Islamic militants yet
again, as happened in Gaza and Lebanon. That would place the likes of ISIS
within mortar range – a few miles – of 80% of our population.
Think about that.
The distance between the 1967 lines and the suburbs of Tel Aviv is like the
distance between the UN building here and Times Square. Israel’s a tiny
country. That’s why in any peace agreement, which will obviously necessitate a
territorial compromise, I will always insist that Israel be able to defend
itself by itself against any threat.
Yet despite all
that has happened, some still don't take Israel’s security concerns
seriously.
But I do, and I
always will.
Because, as
Prime Minister of Israel, I am entrusted with the awesome responsibility of
ensuring the future of the Jewish people and the future of the Jewish state.
And no matter
what pressure is brought to bear, I will never waver in fulfilling that responsibility.
I believe that
with a fresh approach from our neighbors, we can advance peace despite the
difficulties we face.
In Israel, we
have a record of making the impossible possible. We’ve made a desolate land
flourish. And with very few natural resources, we have used the fertile minds
of our people to turn Israel into a global center of technology and innovation.
Peace, of
course, would enable Israel to realize its full potential and to bring a
promising future not only for our people, not only for the Palestinian people,
but for many, many others in our region.
But the old
template for peace must be updated. It must take into account new realities and
new roles and responsibilities for our Arab neighbors.
Ladies and
Gentlemen,
There is a new
Middle East. It presents new dangers, but also new opportunities.
Israel is
prepared to work with Arab partners and the international community to confront
those dangers and to seize those opportunities.
Together we
must recognize the global threat of militant Islam, the primacy of dismantling
Iran’s nuclear weapons capability and the indispensable role of Arab states in advancing
peace with the Palestinians.
All this may fly
in the face of conventional wisdom, but it’s the truth. And the truth must
always be spoken, especially here, in the United Nations.
Isaiah, our great
prophet of peace, taught us nearly 3,000 years ago in Jerusalem to speak truth
to power.
לְמַעַן צִיּוֹן לֹא אֶחֱשֶׁה
וּלְמַעַן יְרוּשָׁלִַם לֹא אֶשְׁקוֹט
עַד-יֵצֵא כַּנֹּגַהּ צִדְקָהּ
וִישׁוּעָתָהּ כְּלַפִּיד יִבְעָר.
For the sake of
Zion, I will not be silent.
For the sake of
Jerusalem, I will not be still.
Until her justice
shines bright,
And her
salvation glows like a flaming torch.
Ladies and
Gentlemen,
Let's light a
torch of truth and justice to safeguard our common future.
Thank you.
--------------------------------
CLARIFICATION: Address by PM Netanyahu at the Institute for National
Security Studies 29/06/2014
Translation
http://www.pmo.gov.il/English/ MediaCenter/Speeches/Pages/spe echINSS290614.aspx
--------------------------------
CLARIFICATION: Address by PM Netanyahu at the Institute for National
Security Studies 29/06/2014
Translation
http://www.pmo.gov.il/English/
...Maintaining the demilitarization of the Palestinian state must be inIsrael's hands. Otherwise, it will simply be unsustainable.
I believe that we must apply this updated concept to our arrangement withthe Palestinians: Palestinian political and economic control in theterritory governed by them, in parallel to Israeli security activity on theground in accordance with the operational requirements to ensure that theterritory is free of terrorist elements. The evacuation of Israel's forceswould most likely lead to the collapse the PA and the rise of radicalIslamic forces, just as it did in Gaza. It would also severely endanger theState of Israel.
…Sovereignty can and should coexist with that. It should adapt itself to thesecurity needs. And the true security needs which are becoming clearer andclearer and which you are currently discussing necessitate the continuedIsraeli presence and security activity in the West Bank and along the JordanRiver. Those who fail to understand that ignore reality.
^
1 comment:
Hand Rubbin' Joo!
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