Earlier this afternoon, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu
gave a
stirring speech in which he called the United Nations to task
for legitimizing the Holocaust-denying Iranian leader Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad and for sanctioning a report charging Israelis with
war crimes for defending themselves against terrorism from Gaza.
Early in the speech, he held up a copy of the meeting minutes of
the 1942 conference in Wannsee in which Germans made plans to
exterminate the Jews, and asked, "Is this protocol a lie?" Then
he held up the original construction plans from the
Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, which he received on a
recent trip to Germany, and asked, "Are these plans of the camp
where one million Jews were murdered a lie too?"
Netanyahu commended those who walked out on or boycotted the
Ahmadinejad speech to the chamber yesterday, then continued: "But
for those who stayed - I say on behalf of the Jewish people, my
people and decent people everywhere - have you no shame? No
decency? What a disgrace, what a mockery of the charter of the
UN."
He said,
"Perhaps some of you think [Ahmadinejad] and his odious regime
only threaten the Jews. Well, if you think that you are wrong,
dead wrong." He explained that, "the struggle against Iran pits
civilization against barbarism."
Later in the speech, he blased the UN report drawing moral
equivelence between Israel and Hamas for the conflict in Gaza
earlier this year, accusing Israelis of war crimes for defending
themselves against a terrorist group that hides among civilians.
"By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would
have dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war
criminals," he said. "What a perversion of truth. What a
perversion of justice."
Should the broader UN endorse the report's findings, he said, "It
would send a message to terrorists everywhere, saying: terrorism
pays. All you have to do is launch your attacks from densely
populated areas, and you will win immunity."
Netanyahu said Israel was willing to negotiate peace with
Palestinians, noting that historically Israel has always been
willing to make deals with Arab leaders genuinely interested in
peace, as it did in the cases of Egypt and Jordan.
"We want to live side by side with them - two free peoples living
in peace, living in prosperity, living in dignity," he said of
Palestinians. "Peace, prosperity, and dignity require one other
element. We must have security."
I've posted some of the video below. Well worth watching.
About the Author
Philip Klein is The American Spectator's Washington correspondent. You can follow him on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/Philipaklein
