The defiant Israeli autocrat Bibi Netanyahu used his speech to the UN General Assembly Friday to drill home his refrain that Iran is the "global ground zero of evil", and that Israel’s opponents are "anti-Semites" - oh, and that Hamas and Hezbollah will be "shown no quarter."
Thousands of protesters demonstrated against Netanyahu in Manhattan on Thursday and Friday, and he addressed an almost empty Assembly Hall after many delegations walked out as he took the rostrum. After all, why give time to a confirmed, unrepentant autocrat who is only using his war B.S. to further prop up his regime? Especially when this freak was responsible for the lapse in security that enabled the Hamas Oct. 7, 2023 attack in the first place?
So now Bibi and his rogue military have left nearly 40,000 dead in Gaza, nearly two- thirds kids and women. That is along with reducing the narrow strip to uninhabitable rubble and disease. Then he had the West Bank blasted to bits before dispatching his air force to hit more than 2,000 targets last week in Beirut leaving more rubble along with more than 600 people killed and roughly 2,000 injured. (WSJ, Sept. 28, p. A8)
But while the UN Assembly Hall was basically empty the public gallery was packed with Bibi's groupies and cheerleaders. In his off the walls harangue, the Israeli dictator shouted:
“We face savage enemies who seek our annihilation. And we must defend ourselves against these savage murderers,”
But Bibi wasn't telling a soul that among the Middle Eastern states Israel alone has nuclear weapons. At last estimate, over 200 of them - enough to level Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon to radioactive ash. The Israelis have had such capacity since the 1960s when PM David Ben - Gurion launched his nuclear reactor at Dimona much to JFK's chagrin. See e.g.
Kennedy, Dimona and the Nuclear Proliferation Problem: 1961-1962 | Wilson Center
Then Bibi in his UN tirade had the chutzpah to yelp about opposing Iran and blocking it from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu made no reference to efforts by the U.S. and France to broker a 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. He also referred scornfully to the UN itself and the International Criminal Court prosecutor who applied for arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his defense minister Yoav Gallant and three senior Hamas leaders, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Fortunately, directly following Netanyahu’s fulsome diatribe, Barbados PM Mia Mottley ascended to the dais to bring some notes of badly needed sanity , declaring:
"We have seen the spread of the war from Gaza, to the consequences of the West Bank, to clearly what is now happening to Lebanon as we speak, with Israel. All of these have a legitimate concern as they rob the global community of financial oxygen and global resources. As students of history we all know even the longest war came to an end. These wars will also come to an end but the questions are: When and at what cost? And with how much loss of life? Including how it will affect the children in the future and their every action for the next 50, 60, 70 years of their lives.
Innocent people are paying the price of the one thing that is theirs to give and they don't give it willingly. It is their life. Unless we address the root causes of these wars one by one, and the manners in which they are being sustained and financed, we will never know anything else then war and rumors of war. The transmission of these extreme scenes into people's rooms, bedrooms will trigger two extreme reactions, neither of which can be acceptable to us in the 3rd decade of the 21st century. We will either get the de-sensitizing of ordinary people to the loss of lives or the anger and inclination for vengeance that is spawned.
We need peace, and it must not be so hard to work for peace. And in the words of the Old Testament, much of which has guided peoples across this world, we see "an eye for an eye". But when we turn from the Old Testament to the New we see - as we do in Romans:
"Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord." Not any country. Not any human being. So that the Bible can't be used as a convenient aid when it suits us and rejected when it doesn't. In the midst of this maelstrom we were very clear. My country took the step of recognizing and establishing diplomatic relations with the state of Palestine. And in spite of having supported a two state solution since 1969. We did this because we recognize the people of Palestine are entitled to recognition and full integration into and support from the international community.
We therefore share with other nations in congratulating the state of Palestine in taking its place among the nations in September this year. And let me be clear, we condemn the actions of Hamas on October 7th. But we equally and strongly condemn the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza which is the result of the disproportionate use of force by Israel. A two state solution, no matter how elusive it may appear to be now, is the only answer. We have seen other battles in mankind's history in which we didn't think we could succeed but we did. We didn't think we could abolish slavery but we did. We removed apartheid in South Africa.
These battles are not beyond our creativity, our capacity, our resilience to stop them.
There is no justification for it. And that is why treaties exist governing the rules for engagement for war. Because we as human beings know better, have learned better and committed to better. And we are now threatened with the growing spread of chronic non-communicable diseases. We cannot afford the distraction of war. If ever there was a time to pause and reset it is now."
Mottley pointed out that “the anger and mistrust of our citizens in institutions, in leaders, and in multilateralism and its processes which exclude, while yielding much talk and little action, is very real.”
She called out the hypocrisy of the Security Council hierarchy, which “suggest(s) that some are full members and others are only part members, part-time, or occasional members,” which “has no place in the twenty-first century.”
Also needing a reset is trust in the international financial architecture. “Restricted access to capital,” Mottley said, “its proportionately high cost, its inadequate scale and the overwhelming burden of debt, are now combining to force governments in the world’s poorest countries and frankly, across many vulnerable middle income countries, to devote more resources to debt service than to health, education, and infrastructure combined.”
As Mia had five times the audience Bibi did, one hopes he will pay attention to her warnings on reckless assaults on innocents, and disproportionate military response and aggression , especially in causing such wanton destruction in Gaza and Lebanon. To see her full UN speech go to this link:
See Also:
Gaza Is A Humanitarian Catastrophe: Citizens There Should Be Offered An "Escape Hatch" - As Refugees
And:
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