[Transcription]
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. 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.
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… 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… Iran's President Rouhani stood here last
week, and shed crocodile tears over what he called "the globalization
of terrorism." 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… 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.
How did Egypt, Yemen, Iraq, Iran and the Levant come
under Islamic domination? Islamic conquest! Its Islam,
Stupid! Terrorism is an intrinsic sacrament of Islam. Allah sanctified
it, Moe exemplified it. Read the relevant verses and see for yourself.
Islam is militant by design. If it was not militant,
it would not be Islam. What part of "fight those who... until" do
you not understand? Islam is neither passive nor anodyne. There is no
pacifist Islam. The Qur'an ordains Jihad for Muslims in
.
Muslims, no adjectives required. If they obey Allah and emulate Moe,
they are violent and blood thirsty. What part of "fight them until"
& "fight those of the disbelievers nearest you" do you not
comprehend?
Islamism is the call to impose Islam on the entire
world by force. Ibn Khaldun, the great Islamic historian, has a clue
for you. Its Islam, Stupid.
If it is composed entirely of Muslims acting in obedience to Allah;
emulating Moe then it is Islam. The names of the various
"terrorist groups" serve to divert our attention from the real source
of terrorism: the damnable doctrines of Islam enshrined in the Qur'an
and exemplified in he hadith and sunnah.
Its Islam, Stupid! All the rest, the cloud of
names obscuring the view, is designed to prevent us from identifying
the enemy
Islam.
Its Islam, Stupid! They are Muslims; they obey
Allah and emulate Moe. They hope to
against us.
Its Islam, Stupid! Islam must be eradicated.
Muslims believe that they go to war or Hell. Fear of
is an attractive carrot. While
Muslims believe, they remain a threat.
to form equal or inferior
relationships with infidels. Machiavelli was wrong: the enemy of
your enemy is not necessarily your friend, he may be another enemy.
While there is one believing Muslim alive on the
face of the earth, Israel will have neither peace nor security
regardless of any delusion of alliance or partnership with Islamic
states. Israel is the ultimate blasphemy: living proof of the
fact that Allah is an impotent idol whose promise is void.
Israel recovered part of her
land. Muslims can never tolerate that. They are
obligated to reconquer Israel.
Only a damned fool thinks that concessions, good
will gestures and ceding land will yield peace; they only
embolden the enemy; they are signs of weakness and lack of will to
defend oneself. Like Charlie Brown, Israel never learns; Abbas,
like Lucy, will always snatch the ball away at the last instant.
Bibi did speak some important truths in this speech,
but he ruined it with one big lie: "
...".
ISIS & HAMAS are Islam. Their is no difference between their
actions and doctrines and those of Islam as preached and practiced by
Moe.
