Sept 24, 2009 Netanyahu Speaks at the UN, Progress at on Iran, Ahmadinejad Gives His Yearly Rant

For the last 48 hours the world's attention was turned to the UN. Yesterday President Obama spoke to the General Assembly and today he chaired a special meeting of the Security Council, only the 3rd time in history the a US president has done so. In between, Iranian President Ahmadinejad gave his yearly speech to the Security Council. If in past years he was treated as a true celebrity, this year after his election coup, most of the leaders of the world seem much less deferential to him. More than half the member countries of the UN were absent from his speech last night, including most of Western Europe and almost the whole Arab world. His speech was considered by many reporters as more moderate. Of course, one can ignore the sentence in which he states that a small group can not be allowed to have such control in the world (i. e. the Jews). When I saw excerpts of Ahmadinejad's speech on Israeli TV I heard him go on to say that this control will only end when the 7th Mahdis appears. This may have been too much for most of the Western media to understand. Of course the Sunnis in the room understood it only too well, since when the 7th Madis appears all those (Sunnis) who have strayed from the true word will be slain.

Despite this rather depressing speech there were signs of light at the UN today. While Iran was not officially on the agenda of the Security Council today – general nuclear disarmament was, both the leaders of France and Great Britain gave speeches calling for strong actions against Iran. The Europeans made President Obama seem to be the moderate and they the extremist when it comes to Iran. With Russia seemingly willing to go along, that just leaves the Chinese to be convinced in order to possibly place meaningful sanctions on Iran. There seems to finally be a sense of urgency at the UN on the subject. Will it translate into action? Only time will tell. But, I am slightly more optimistic today than I was a few days ago.

Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke this afternoon to the General Assembly. In a well crafted speech he began by thanking those countries who walked out on Ahmadinejad yesterday and scolding those that listened. He brought with him two props, the Protocols of the Wansee Conference- where the Germans planned the Final Solution and architectural plans of Auschwitz with Himmler's signature. Netany ahu questioned whether the German government, who has kept these plans, has been part of some great hoax in telling about the Holocaust.

Netanyahu then went on to attack the Goldstone Report on Gaza by explaining that if Israel was to take further risks for peace it had to know it could defend itself. He went back to the arguments that those who favored withdrawal from Gaza use to say- if Israel withdrew and they attack, they can be leveled. Netanyahu even gave the historic parallel that the only time a country had been hit by missile was England during WWII and they responded by carpet bombing German cities. He said that he was not passing judgment just describing history, and while Israel would never do that, it had to be able to defend itself (he went on to describe Israel's effort to warn civilians with text messages and phone calls etc). 20 Netanyahu said that Israel was willing to take risks, since he believed the only solution was two states: a Palestinian state side by side with a Jewish one (he received his one round of applause for that), but Israel could only do that if it was secure, and one of the ways to make sure Israel was secure was to stop the worlds greatest supporter of terrorism, Iran, from acquiring nuclear weapons. For if a country that preferred living in the 9th century acquired nuclear weapons it could be catastrophe for mankind Overall a very good speech. Text

I suggest you read this article in Haaretz- it does an excelent job of summarizing the state of affairs.