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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Speech at the UN General Assembly

September 24, 2009

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Speech at the UN General Assembly

Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Nearly 62 years ago, the United Nations recognized the right of the Jews, an ancient people 3,500 years-old, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland.

I stand here today as the Prime Minister of Israel, the Jewish state, and I speak to you on behalf of my country and my people.

The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events. Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth.

Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie.

Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people. The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments.

Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews. Is this a lie?

A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Those plans are signed by Hitler’s deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself. Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered. Is this too a lie?

This June, President Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp. Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie? And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie?

One-third of all Jews perished in the conflagration. Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own. My wife’s grandparents, her father’s two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered by the Nazis. Is that also a lie?
Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium. To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries.

But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency?

A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!

Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews. You’re wrong. History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others.

This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene three decades ago after lying dormant for centuries.

In the past thirty years, this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others. Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times. Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated.

The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization. It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death. The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress of the 21st century. The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day.

Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future. And the future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope. The pace of progress is growing exponentially. It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the internet.

What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come.

We will crack the genetic code. We will cure the incurable. We will lengthen our lives. We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet.

I am proud that my country Israel is at the forefront of these advances - by leading innovations in science and technology, medicine and biology, agriculture and water, energy and the environment. These innovations the world over offer humanity a sunlit future of unimagined promise.

But if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons, the march of history could be reversed for a time. And like the belated victory over the Nazis, the forces of progress and freedom will prevail only after a horrific toll of blood and fortune has been exacted from mankind.

That is why the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction, and the most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Are the member states of the United Nations up to that challenge? Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom?

Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad daylight and gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the streets choking in their own blood?

Will the international community thwart the world’s most pernicious sponsors and practitioners of terrorism?

Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world?

The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime. People of goodwill around the world stand with them, as do the thousands who have been protesting outside this hall. Will the United Nations stand by their side?

Ladies and Gentlemen,
The jury is still out on the United Nations, and recent signs are not encouraging.

Rather than condemning the terrorists and their Iranian patrons, some here have condemned their victims. That is exactly what a recent UN report on Gaza did, falsely equating the terrorists with those they targeted.

For eight long years, Hamas fired from Gaza thousands of missiles, mortars and rockets on nearby Israeli cities. Year after year, as these missiles were deliberately hurled at our civilians, not a single UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks.

We heard nothing - absolutely nothing - from the UN Human Rights Council, a misnamed institution if there ever was one.

In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza. It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis.

We didn’t get peace. Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare.

You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent.

Finally, after eight years of this unremitting assault, Israel was finally forced to respond. But how should we have responded?

Well, there is only one example in history of thousands of rockets being fired on a country’s civilian population. It happened when the Nazis rocketed British cities during World War II.

During that war, the allies leveled German cities, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties. Israel chose to respond differently. Faced with an enemy committing a double war crime of firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians - Israel sought to conduct surgical strikes against the rocket launchers.

That was no easy task because the terrorists were firing missiles from homes and schools, using mosques as weapons depots and ferreting explosives in ambulances.

Israel, by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas. We dropped countless flyers over their homes, sent thousands of text messages and called thousands of cell phones asking people to leave.

Never has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy’s civilian population from harm’s way. Yet faced with such a clear case of aggressor and victim, who did the UN Human Rights Council decide to condemn? Israel.

A democracy legitimately defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and given an unfair trial to boot.

By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would have dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war criminals. What a perversion of truth! What a perversion of justice!

Delegates of the United Nations,
Will you accept this farce? Because if you do, the United Nations would revert to its darkest days, when the worst violators of human rights sat in judgment against the law-abiding democracies, when Zionism was equated with racism and when an automatic majority could declare that the earth is flat.

If this body does not reject this report, it would send a message to terrorists everywhere: Terror pays; if you launch your attacks from densely populated areas, you will win immunity.

And in condemning Israel, this body would also deal a mortal blow to peace. Here’s why. When Israel left Gaza, many hoped that the missile attacks would stop. Others believed that at the very least, Israel would have international legitimacy to exercise its right of self-defense.

What legitimacy? What self-defense?

The same UN that cheered Israel as it left Gaza and promised to back our right of self-defense now accuses us -my people, my country - of war crimes? And for what? For acting responsibly in self-defense. What a travesty!

Israel justly defended itself against terror. This biased and unjust report is a clear-cut test for all governments. Will you stand with Israel or will you stand with the terrorists?

We must know the answer to that question now. Now and not later. Because if Israel is again asked to take more risks for peace, we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow.

Only if we have the confidence that we can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
All of Israel wants peace. Any time an Arab leader genuinely wanted peace with us, we made peace. We made peace with Egypt led by Anwar Sadat. We made peace with Jordan led by King Hussein.

And if the Palestinians truly want peace, I and my government, and the people of Israel, will make peace. But we want a genuine peace, a defensible peace, a permanent peace.

In 1947, this body voted to establish two states for two peoples - a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted that resolution. The Arabs rejected it. We ask the Palestinians to finally do what they have refused to do for 62 years: Say yes to a Jewish state.

Just as we are asked to recognize a nation-state for the Palestinian people, the Palestinians must be asked to recognize the nation state of the Jewish people. The Jewish people are not foreign conquerors in the Land of Israel. This is the land of our forefathers.

Inscribed on the walls outside this building is the great Biblical vision of peace: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. They shall learn war no more.” These words were spoken by the Jewish prophet Isaiah 2,800 years ago as he walked in my country, in my city - in the hills of Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem. We are not strangers to this land. It is our homeland.

As deeply connected as we are to this land, we recognize that the Palestinians also live there and want a home of their own. We want to live side by side with them, two free peoples living in peace, prosperity and dignity.

But we must have security. The Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves except those handful of powers that could endanger Israel.

That is why a Palestinian state must be effectively demilitarized. We don’t want another Gaza, another Iranian backed terror base abutting Jerusalem and perched on the hills a few kilometers from Tel Aviv.

We want peace.
I believe such a peace can be achieved. But only if we roll back the forces of terror, led by Iran, that seek to destroy peace, eliminate Israel and overthrow the world order.

The question facing the international community is whether it is prepared to confront those forces or accommodate them.

Over seventy years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he called the “confirmed unteachability of mankind,” the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them.

Churchill bemoaned what he called the “want of foresight, the unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong.”

I speak here today in the hope that Churchill’s assessment of the “unteachability of mankind” is for once proven wrong.

Credit: Prime Minister’s office

PM Netanyahu\’s Yom Ha\’atzmaut Message to the Diaspora Communities

Brought by: Eitan Behar

Credit: PM’s office

Address by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Memorial Service for Israel’s Fallen Soldiers, Ammunition Hill

Speaker of the Knesset, Mr. Rueven Rivlin,

President of the Supreme Court, Justice Dorit Beinish,

Bereaved Families,

Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat,

Israel’s Chief Rabbis, Rabbi Shlomo Moshe Amar and Rabbi Yona Metzger,

Chairman of the National Yad La’Banim Organizations, Eli Ben Shem,

Chairman of the Jerusalem Yad La’Banim Organization, Eli Dahan,

Generals and Commanders,

Distinguished Guests,

The soil of this land on which we are standing is “Yad Labanim” - sanctified in our sons’ boundless devotion. Every piece of land, every rock or crevice is a reminder of the fierce nocturnal battle that took place here for the liberation of Jerusalem.

The fighters of the IDF in the Six Day War, not only on the Jerusalem front, carried in their hearts, upon marching to battle, the song we all remember from thiose days, “Jerusalem of Gold”, which was written shortly before the war. Jerusalem and Zion are one and the same - Zionism stems from Zion, and the State of Israel stems from Zionism. Everything comes from Jerusalem and everything returns to Jerusalem. Every fallen soldier in Israel’s battles wears the crown of Jerusalem, and we are dust at their feet.

Dear Families,

In a short while, at dusk, a memorial siren will be heard all across the nation. The people of Israel will unite in memory of those who fell in that long, continuous battle for our existence and independence.

The battlefields of this massive campaign, in which the defenders of the state fought and fell, are scattered all across the country and its borders.

It did not help them, Israel’s haters. The State of Israel triumphed. It absorbed millions of immigrants from all ends of the earth, settled and built the land and developed a thriving economy, while maintaining a free, democratic, cultural society. In spite of all its enemies, Israel signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, and despite the difficulties, we will continue in the effort to complete the circle of peace with the rest of our neighbors until we succeed.

The State of Israel owes all these achievements to its fighting heroes - the ones who safeguarded, with their bodies and valiant spirits, our country. They are the ones most worthy of all to wear the nation’s crown of glory and be the object of its love and deepest sense of gratitude.

We are people who seek life, and therefore we must continue consolidating our defensive shield - the Israel Defense Forces, the General Security Service, the Mossad, the Israel Police the Border Guard and all our security services. They are the guarantee of security, they are the key to peace.

The price we have paid, and continue to pay, for living in our country, is heavy, too heavy to bear, I know. My family was also affected by bereavement. Your grief is my grief, and like you, I feel the scorching pain in the depth of my heart.

Like you, I bear the memory, the longing and the loss.

Vera, you touched my heart. I am very familiar with your suffering, our suffering. There are levels of torment in the hell of grief and a high level is reserved for brothers and sons, but at the highest level is the agony of parents, fathers and perhaps even above them, mothers. I know.

At twilight, when darkness falls, the Memorial Day for Israel’s Fallen Soldiers will commence. The sprit of everyday life will fade away at once, the pace of the day will be slowed, and Israel and the entire nation will be wrapped in sadness.

On this special day, the entire people, in complete national unity, will rise above every dispute and unite around the bereaved families with a profound sense of shared destiny, because every person in Israel has a relative, companion, friend or acquaintance from among the fallen, whose image they carry with them with an aching heart. There is always one person we remember more than any other, but in the end, we all remember all of them.

That is why the unity we are demonstrating on this day is natural and obvious. But on this day of unity, I wish to say that unity is needed in this nation on all days of the year. It is what helped us in the past to overcome great hardships and difficulties, and even now, it will help

us face the great challenges of tomorrow. Our existence as a people and a state depends on our unity.

Today, while remembering the fallen, we will also think of the injured and disabled soldiers and wish them full recovery and rehabilitation. We will spare no effort in locating our missing soldiers and bringing home our kidnapped IDF soldier, Gilad Shalit.

Before our 61st Independence Day begins, we will unite in brotherly solidarity with you, members of the bereaved families, bring you closer to our hearts with love, and will remember and cherish our beloved ones - heroes of this nation - with eternal glory.

May the memory of the fallen be blessed.

Honorable President, Shimon Peres,
Speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin and His Wife,
President of the Supreme Court, Dorit Beinish,
Ministers, Members of Knesset,
Honorable Chief Rabbis and Congregation Leaders,
Chairman of the Council of Yad Vashem, Rabbi Israel Meir Lau,
Chairman of the Board of Yad Vashem, Avner Shalev,
Governor of Virginia, Tim Kaine and His Wife,
Esteemed Holocaust Survivors from Israel and Abroad,
Righteous Gentiles,
Distinguished Guests,

Before the recent Pesach holiday, a Jewish hero passed away - David Plonsky, also known as “Yurek”, may his memory be blessed - the cigarette salesman from the Triple Cross Square in Warsaw.

Yurek was only 14 when the Warsaw Ghetto was established. He turned from child into adult overnight. He smuggled food into the ghetto and his life was under constant threat. Yurek survived. He immigrated to Israel, fought in the War of Independence, started a family and built a home at Kibbutz Meggido. He lost his son Eitan during the Yom Kippur War, but found the fortitude to overcome this tragedy as well. He continued living, continued building and continued inculcating his legacy into thousands of youngsters.

His life story and activities are, to a large extent, a mirror of the Jewish people’s transition from exile to liberty - a story of suffering, supreme heroism, construction and renaissance; a story of bereavement, faith and independence.

Yurek may have survived the inferno, but close to a million and a half Jewish children did not survive and perished in the Holocaust. I think the human mind cannot grasp this fact. We always see before us the famous picture of the frightened Jewish child, raising his hands in front of the barrels of German rifles. But this child was only one out of a million and a half children, a million and a half pairs of frightened eyes. Each one of them was an entire world of hopes and dreams, a mother’s love and a father’s concern, a world transformed instantly into one of terror, suffering and death.

Some of them survived for months and years, hiding in dungeons and forests, freezing in the snow, or starving to death. Children of ten or twelve years-old, escaping like persecuted wild animals from the Nazi hunters hunting them down in order to kill them. Some of these children found shelter in churches and convents, separated from their parents, torn by their longings, sometimes found shelter in the homes of the best of humanity, non-Jews, Righteous Gentiles who risked not only their lives, but also the lives of their families to rescue them from death.

Some of the children, like Yurek, in a reversal of roles became children defending their parents. Children of eight or nine years-old who risked their lives daily to bring food into the starved ghetto and a piece of bread for mommy and daddy. Little heroes, awarded a medal by no one. The majority of them left behind them neither a name nor a trace. The Nazi beast devoured them and their parents, and there is no one to tell of their tale of heroism.

However, even in moments of the most terrible despair of our people’s history, in the final moments of the Warsaw Ghetto, Jewish youngsters from all streams fought an unparalleled war of heroism against the Nazi oppressor. By doing so, they marked the great transformation that was about to occur in the fate of our people several years later, with the establishment of the State of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces.

Distinguished Guests,

“In every generation they rise against us to destroy us; and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hand”. He saves us through the living spirit in our people and its representatives - judges, prophets, kings, Maccabim.

However, in the case of the Holocaust, the rescue came late, too late for six million of our people, and a new flame was rekindled in our remaining survivors only with the establishment of the State of Israel in the Land of Israel.

Anti-Semitism is an age-old historic phenomenon. However, if anyone thought that after the horrors of the Holocaust, this malignant phenomenon will vanish from the world, today it is clear that they were, unfortunately, mistaken. Concurrently with human progress and enlightenment, the dark shadows of hatred are again invading our people and State.

In our generation, only a few dozen years after the Holocaust, new forces arise, clearly and openly stating their intention to wipe the Jewish State off the face of the earth. And the response of the civilized world? Instead of a firm denunciation - at best, we hear a faint voice.

The unfortunate fact is that while we are marking the events of the Holocaust here at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, there are those who chose to participate in a spectacle of hatred of Israel, conducted at this very hour in the heart of Europe.

From here I turn to you, President of Switzerland, and I ask you: how can you, as a head of an enlightened state, meet with those who deny the Holocaust and strive for another one?

In opposition to this, we express our appreciation to those important countries which chose to boycott this demonstration of hatred - including the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Holland, Poland, Australia and New Zealand, as well as representatives who left the hall during the hateful words of the Iranian president.

We must awaken the nations’ conscience, we must form alliances and make connections, but above all, we must remember that our ability to repel the threats to our people’s existence stems from the strength of our State, from our unity and our cohesion in times of trial.

We will not allow Holocaust deniers to carry out another Jewish Holocaust. This is the supreme commitment of the State of Israel, and it is my supreme commitment as Prime Minister of Israel.

The State of Israel is the shield; it is the comfort and hope of the Jewish people. It is where we gather our exiles, where we build new cities in the land of our forefathers, where we create, for the glory of our people and for all mankind.

Israel’s achievements in all fields - culture, technology, science, agriculture, medicine and security are groundbreaking. Our people may be small in number, but of great strength.

Distinguished Guests,

Six years ago, Yurek, may his memory be blessed, was one of the torch lighters here at Yad Vashem. This evening, six Holocaust survivors will light memorial torches. Each one of them has a touching human story and a contribution to the building of the people and the state.

The Government of Israel has a deep commitment to you, Holocaust survivors. In past years the state did not always meet your special needs. Over the past several years things have changed. Today, I guarantee you that we will continue to properly address your needs. You are clear evidence of the transcendence of the Jewish spirit, this spirit which held the power to rise up from the valley of death, return to our homeland and build our lives here.

In the words of Prophet Zachariah: “Thus said Hashem, Master of Legions: My cities will once again spread out with bounty; Hashem will have mercy on Zion once again and He will choose Jerusalem once again”.

Credit: PMO’s website
Brought by: Eitan Behar

Following are Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting today:

“This evening, the State of Israel marks Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day. Six million of our brethren were massacred during the Holocaust. Sadly, not everyone learned the lesson. While we gather to honor their memory, in Switzerland there will assemble a conference allegedly aimed against racism. Its guest-of-honor is a racist Holocaust-denier who does not hide his intentions to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. I commend the countries that are boycotting this show of hatred. As opposed to those dark days, today a strong Jewish state stands to ensure the continued existence of the Jewish people in the face of this new anti-Semitism.

We do not forget the survivors. In a joint proposal with my colleagues, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz and Social Welfare and Social Services Minister Isaac Herzog, we have decided to allocate NIS 20 million from the basket of services intended for Holocaust survivors and NIS 10 million in additional funds from the Company for Restitution of Holocaust Victims Assets, NIS 30 million which we want to earmark to subsidize medicines for survivors. I am glad that we have found a solution for this vital need of Holocaust survivors who live among us. It is suitable that they should live out their lives in honor and in health.

In the final reckoning, the State of Israel is the answer and the key to ensuring the existence of the Jewish People, to ensuring its security as well as its welfare and the welfare of the survivors.

Thank you very much.”

Credit: PMO’s website

Brought by: Eitan Behar