Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday took a swipe at mounting criticisms of Israel’s handling of the almost year-long war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
In a fiery speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, he warned that Israel would promptly strike back at any aggressor to defend its people.
Netanyahu said he initially didn’t intend to attend the UNGA meeting this year as his country was at war fighting for its life, but later decided to be present to speak for his people and set the records straight against “lies and slanders” being levelled against Israel.
He said Israel was being falsely accused of genocide when it defended itself against enemies who tried to commit genocide against it, and this manifested when it was “absurdly” accused by the ICC prosecutor of deliberately starving Palestinians in Gaza.
He said despite efforts by Israel to make peace with neighbours, it faces savage enemies who seek its annihilation, but that it must defend itself against them.
He said as Israel defends itself against Iran, the lines separating blessing and curse could not be clearer, adding, “These savage murderers, our enemies, seek not only to destroy us, but they seek to destroy our common civilisation and return all of us to a dark age of tyranny and terror.”
He fingered those he termed “self-described progressives” who opposed Israel’s war effort in the US and beyond without any idea about the reality of life under the “Iranian goons” they supposedly supported.
“If you strike us, we will strike you,” he warned, “There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach. And that is true of the entire Middle East. We see yet another profound moral confusion when self-described progressives march against the democracy of Israel. Don’t they realise they support the Iranian-backed goons in Tehran and Gaza, the goons who shot down protesters, murder women for not covering their hair, and hang gays in public squares?” he said.
The United Nations, he said, represented an “anti-Israel flat-earth society.” He denounced allegations by the International Criminal Court that Israel had deliberately targeted civilians in Gaza. In the speech which came almost a year after the October 7 attack by the Iran-backed terror group, Hamas, Netanyahu recounted the horrors of October 7, reminding them how they burned families alive and maimed women, an attack which set off a domino effect of conflict in the Middle East, as Israel launched an offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and was beset by aggression from Hezbollah in Lebanon, which it is equally countering. Netanyahu reiterated that Israel would not tolerate any possibility that Hamas could rebuild its hold on the Gaza Strip after the war, which he compared to allowing the Nazis to rebuild Germany in the wake of World War II. He sought international support for renewal of the 2020 Abraham Accords and a peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, describing it as a boom to the security and economy of both countries.
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