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.
