Benjamin Netanyahu's Speech Today at the UN: An Answer to Those Who Urge Unilateral Surrender

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the most demonized men on the planet today and also one of the world's greatest statesman. With a community organizer in the White House and faceless bureaucrats running the European Union into the ground, surely Netanyahu deserves the title "Leader of the West."

Here are some excerpts from his speech. I post them here in the faint hope that some who normally only hear anti-Zionist propaganda from the left-leaning media and intellectual elites of our culture will read them (and click through to the entire speech) and get the other side of the story for once.

At the beginning of the speech and all the way through, he pleads with the Palestinians to come to the negotiating table and make peace.

Ladies and gentlemen, Israel has extended its hand in peace from the moment it was established 63 years ago. On behalf of Israel and the Jewish people, I extend that hand again today. I extend it to the people of Egypt and Jordan, with renewed friendship for neighbors with whom we have made peace. I extend it to the people of Turkey, with respect and good will. I extend it to the people of Libya and Tunisia, with admiration for those trying to build a democratic future. I extend it to the other peoples of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, with whom we want to forge a new beginning. I extend it to the people of Syria, Lebanon and Iran, with awe at the courage of those fighting brutal repression.

But most especially, I extend my hand to the Palestinian people, with whom we seek a just and lasting peace. (Applause.)

But he sadly notes the absurd anti-Israel prejudice that has been on display at the United Nations for many years:

Ladies and gentlemen, in Israel our hope for peace never wanes. Our scientists, doctors, innovators, apply their genius to improve the world of tomorrow. Our artists, our writers, enrich the heritage of humanity. Now, I know that this is not exactly the image of Israel that is often portrayed in this hall. After all, it was here in 1975 that the age-old yearning of my people to restore our national life in our ancient biblical homeland -- it was then that this was braided -- branded, rather -- shamefully, as racism. And it was here in 1980, right here, that the historic peace agreement between Israel and Egypt wasn't praised; it was denounced! And it's here year after year that Israel is unjustly singled out for condemnation. It's singled out for condemnation more often than all the nations of the world combined. Twenty-one out of the 27 General Assembly resolutions condemn Israel -- the one true democracy in the Middle East.

Well, this is an unfortunate part of the U.N. institution. It's the -- the theater of the absurd. It doesn't only cast Israel as the villain; it often casts real villains in leading roles: Gadhafi's Libya chaired the U.N. Commission on Human Rights; Saddam's Iraq headed the U.N. Committee on Disarmament.

You might say: That's the past. Well, here's what's happening now -- right now, today. Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon now presides over the U.N. Security Council. This means, in effect, that a terror organization presides over the body entrusted with guaranteeing the world's security.

You couldn't make this thing up.

So here in the U.N., automatic majorities can decide anything. They can decide that the sun sets in the west or rises in the west. I think the first has already been pre-ordained. But they can also decide -- they have decided that the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism's holiest place, is occupied Palestinian territory. . . .

He takes on directly the mainstream media narrative of what is blocking peace and demolishes it effectively:

And the world around Israel is definitely becoming more dangerous. Militant Islam has already taken over Lebanon and Gaza. It's determined to tear apart the peace treaties between Israel and Egypt and between Israel and Jordan. It's poisoned many Arab minds against Jews and Israel, against America and the West. It opposes not the policies of Israel but the existence of Israel.

Now, some argue that the spread of militant Islam, especially in these turbulent times -- if you want to slow it down, they argue, Israel must hurry to make concessions, to make territorial compromises. And this theory sounds simple. Basically it goes like this: Leave the territory, and peace will be advanced. The moderates will be strengthened, the radicals will be kept at bay. And don't worry about the pesky details of how Israel will actually defend itself; international troops will do the job.

These people say to me constantly: Just make a sweeping offer, and everything will work out. You know, there's only one problem with that theory. We've tried it and it hasn't worked. In 2000 Israel made a sweeping peace offer that met virtually all of the Palestinian demands. Arafat rejected it. The Palestinians then launched a terror attack that claimed a thousand Israeli lives.

Prime Minister Olmert afterwards made an even more sweeping offer, in 2008. President Abbas didn't even respond to it.

But Israel did more than just make sweeping offers. We actually left territory. We withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 and from every square inch of Gaza in 2005. That didn't calm the Islamic storm, the militant Islamic storm that threatens us. It only brought the storm closer and make it stronger.

Hezbollah and Hamas fired thousands of rockets against our cities from the very territories we vacated. See, when Israel left Lebanon and Gaza, the moderates didn't defeat the radicals, the moderates were devoured by the radicals. And I regret to say that international troops like UNIFIL in Lebanon and UBAM (ph) in Gaza didn't stop the radicals from attacking Israel.

We left Gaza hoping for peace.

We didn't freeze the settlements in Gaza, we uprooted them. We did exactly what the theory says: Get out, go back to the 1967 borders, dismantle the settlements.

And I don't think people remember how far we went to achieve this. We uprooted thousands of people from their homes. We pulled children out of -- out of their schools and their kindergartens. We bulldozed synagogues. We even -- we even moved loved ones from their graves. And then, having done all that, we gave the keys of Gaza to President Abbas.

Now the theory says it should all work out, and President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority now could build a peaceful state in Gaza. You can remember that the entire world applauded. They applauded our withdrawal as an act of great statesmanship. It was a bold act of peace.

But ladies and gentlemen, we didn't get peace. We got war. We got Iran, which through its proxy Hamas promptly kicked out the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority collapsed in a day -- in one day.

President Abbas just said on this podium that the Palestinians are armed only with their hopes and dreams. Yeah, hopes, dreams and 10,000 missiles and Grad rockets supplied by Iran, not to mention the river of lethal weapons now flowing into Gaza from the Sinai, from Libya, and from elsewhere.

Thousands of missiles have already rained down on our cities. So you might understand that, given all this,Israelis rightly ask: What's to prevent this from happening again in the West Bank? See, most of our major cities in the south of the country are within a few dozen kilometers from Gaza. But in the center of the country, opposite the West Bank, our cities are a few hundred meters or at most a few kilometers away from the edge of the West Bank.

So I want to ask you. Would any of you -- would any of you bring danger so close to your cities, to your families? Would you act so recklessly with the lives of your citizens? Israel is prepared to have a Palestinian state in the West Bank, but we're not prepared to have another Gaza there. And that's why we need to have real security arrangements, which the Palestinians simply refuse to negotiate with us.

Israelis remember the bitter lessons of Gaza. Many of Israel's critics ignore them. They irresponsibly advise Israel to go down this same perilous path again. Your read what these people say and it's as if nothing happened -- just repeating the same advice, the same formulas as though none of this happened.

And these critics continue to press Israel to make far-reaching concessions without first assuring Israel's security. They praise those who unwittingly feed the insatiable crocodile of militant Islam as bold statesmen. They cast as enemies of peace those of us who insist that we must first erect a sturdy barrier to keep the crocodile out, or at the very least jam an iron bar between its gaping jaws.

So in the face of the labels and the libels, Israel must heed better advice. Better a bad press than a good eulogy, and better still would be a fair press whose sense of history extends beyond breakfast, and which recognizes Israel's legitimate security concerns.

There is much more. Read it here.

The fact is that Israel wants peace and is willing to make peace as long as (1) the other side is willing to recognize the permanent legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state and (2) reasonable security arrangements can be made. If the Palestinians are not willing to make peace on this basis, they should be ostracized, de-funded, not recognized, pressured and vilified by the world community until they capitulate to reason.

Obama, Israel and America

I know I've been blogging an awful lot about Israel lately, but it has been in the news and I have been meaning to comment on the events of last week in Washington and have just not had time yet. I've been reading a lot of commentary on Obama's speech, the meeting between Netanyahu and Obama, both of their speeches to AIEPAC and then Netanyahu's speech to the joint session of Congress. I've read the speeches and a lot of analysis (who could have time to read it all!) and I'd like to make two observations.

1. Barack Obama is clearly biased against Israel and in favor of the Palestinians, even though political realities force him to pretend to be Israel's friend. He cannot shift American foreign policy unilaterally and dramatically, but he can work incrementally to move it left-ward in little ways and this is what he is doing.

2. Many seasoned observers of American foreign policy regard him as a naive, incompetent, ill-informed amateur when it comes to foreign policy and this is undoubtedly true. He alienates allies and defers to enemies in such a way as to discourage those who should be standing with America and encouraging those whose fundamental interests are at odds with those of America. However, to say this is not in any way to negate point #1 above. He may well be both incompetent and biased.

The best summary of the week I've seen is from Charles Krauthammer, who writes in a NRO blog post entitled "What Obama Did to Israel":

"Every Arab-Israeli negotiation contains a fundamental asymmetry: Israel gives up land, which is tangible; the Arabs make promises, which are ephemeral. The longstanding American solution has been to nonetheless urge Israel to take risks for peace while America balances things by giving assurances of U.S. support for Israel’s security and diplomatic needs.

It’s on the basis of such solemn assurances that Israel undertook, for example, the Gaza withdrawal. In order to mitigate this risk, Pres. George W. Bush gave a written commitment that America supported Israel’s absorption of major settlement blocs in any peace agreement, opposed any return to the 1967 lines, and stood firm against the so-called Palestinian right of return to Israel.

For two and a half years, the Obama administration has refused to recognize and reaffirm these assurances. Then last week in his State Department speech, President Obama definitively trashed them. He declared that the Arab-Israeli conflict should indeed be resolved along “the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.”

Nothing new here, said Obama three days later. “By definition, it means that the parties themselves — Israelis and Palestinians — will negotiate a border that is different” from 1967.

It means nothing of the sort. “Mutually” means both parties have to agree. And if one side doesn’t? Then, by definition, you’re back to the 1967 lines.

Nor is this merely a theoretical proposition. Three times the Palestinians have been offered exactly that formula, 1967 plus swaps — at Camp David 2000, Taba 2001, and the 2008 Olmert-Abbas negotiations. Every time, the Palestinians said no and walked away.

And that remains their position today: The 1967 lines. Period. Indeed, in September the Palestinians are going to the U.N. to get the world to ratify precisely that: a Palestinian state on the ’67 lines. No swaps.

Note how Obama has undermined Israel’s negotiating position. He is demanding that Israel go into peace talks having already forfeited its claim to the territory won in the ’67 war — its only bargaining chip. Remember: That ’67 line runs right through Jerusalem. Thus the starting point of negotiations would be that the Western Wall and even Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter are Palestinian — alien territory for which Israel must now bargain . . .

Obama also moved the goal posts on the so-called right of return. Flooding Israel with millions of Arabs would destroy the world’s only Jewish state while creating a 23rd Arab state and a second Palestinian state — not exactly what we mean when we speak of a “two-state solution.” That’s why it has been the policy of the U.S. to adamantly oppose this “right.”

Yet in his State Department speech, Obama refused to simply restate this position — and refused again in a supposedly corrective speech three days later. Instead, he told Israel it must negotiate the right of return with the Palestinians after having given every inch of territory. Bargaining with what, pray tell?

No matter. “The status quo is unsustainable,” declared Obama, “and Israel too must act boldly to advance a lasting peace.”

Israel too? Exactly what bold steps for peace have the Palestinians taken? Israel made three radically conciliatory offers to establish a Palestinian state, withdrew from Gaza, and has been trying to renew negotiations for more than two years. Meanwhile, the Gaza Palestinians have been firing rockets at Israeli towns and villages. And on the West Bank, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas turned down the Olmert offer, walked out of negotiations with Binyamin Netanyahu, and now defies the United States by seeking not peace talks but instant statehood — without peace, without recognizing Israel — at the U.N. And to make unmistakable this spurning of any peace process, Abbas agrees to join the openly genocidal Hamas in a unity government, which even Obama acknowledges makes negotiations impossible."

The key point is that Obama is putting pressure on Israel to make concessions now - in advance of any peace talks - without getting anything in return. Why, if he is not simply biased against Israel?

Alas, the mask has slipped. The reaction to Obama's biased speech has been fascinating. While left-wing media types profess to buy Obama's position that "nothing has changed," Jewish donors to the Democratic Party, the Canadian government, PM Netanyahu, Congress and even major players in the Democratic Party such as Harry Reid beg to differ. When the president is out to the left of Harry Reid, it is time to stop nonsensically referring to him as a "centrist." (And when the US president stands to the left of Canada on an issue, it really must be extraordinary times!)

PM Netanyahu's speech to Congress was interrupted 56 times for applause including 29 standing ovations. He was witty, relaxed and positive. Many Americans wish they had a president who could analyze the geo-political situation with his combination of moral clarity and logical thinking. It is safe to say that Obama does not speak for Congress, which is much closer to the American people, on this issue.

In the comments sections of various newspaper columns and blog posts, you often see people lamenting how "the Jews" control the US government and the media and everything else. Reading them is surreal; it is like going back into a time machine into the 1930s.

People on the left, who have thrown in their lot with Islamofascism, need to understand one thing: it is not just the Jews in the US who stand with Israel. And it is not just the fundamentalist, dispensationalist strain of American Evangelicalism. It is the majority of the American people who recognize in Israel a nation with a common heritage, a liberal democratic politics and a need for support in a hostile environment. They realize that once the Islamofascists succeed in destroying Israel ("the Little Satan"), America ("the Great Satan") is next on the menu. They understand that Israel and other Western countries have a common heritage, common tradition and common enemies.

The Left needs to understand that just as America rejected Stalin's Russia (which the Left held up as the Utopian future) and just as America rejected Hitler's Third Reich (with its attack on God and God's people), America will reject Islam and its attempt to destroy the West. When Israel is attacked, the West is attacked.

The Left has always been a Fifth Column within our culture - disloyal and dangerous. But it cannot win as long as the majority of the people reject it and its totalitarian friends. Obama is finding that out the hard way, and in November 2012, this lesson will be clear in a way that is indisputable. For as someone said: "Elections have consequences."