Video: Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speech to U.N. on Sept 24th rips UN for Ahmadinejad "disgrace", Goldstone Report

"The U.N.'s most urgent challenge is to prevent Tehran tyrants from acquiring nuclear weapons"

In an impassioned speech to the UN General Assembly Thursday, Sept 24, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the United Nations' most important mission today is to prevent "the tyrants of Tehran" from acquiring nuclear weapons, because the marriage of religious fanaticism and weapons of mass destruction would endanger the world. Holding up the minutes of the Nazi leaders' 1942, decision to annihilate the Jewish people, Netanyahu said the man who called the Holocaust a lie also pledges to wipe out the state of the Jewish people, making a mockery of the UN Charter.

His statement, "We ask the Palestinians to recognize the nation-state of the Jewish people just as we recognize the Palestinian wish for a home of their own," won applause in the chamber. Netanyahu went on to say he believes the two peoples can live side by side in peace, prosperity and dignity, if there is security. Therefore the Palestinian state must be "effectively demilitarized."

The prime minister slammed the UN report which held Israel guilty of war crimes in its Gaza operation last January, accusing its authors of "equating terrorists and their victims." The world body never once condemned Hamas' eight-year rocket offensive against the Israeli population.

Israel must be sure the world body rejects this biased report before embarking on peace talks with the Palestinians, he said. "We must be sure the West Bank will never be another Gaza."

Israel wants peace and believes it is possible with good will and hard work, so long as "the world body fights terrorist forces and their backers and does not accommodate them."  (source DebkaFile)

Here is the video of PM Benjamin Netanyahu's address before the United Nations General Assembly today (in four parts, accessible under the second menu button from the left).


(Video courtesy Israel will stand alone)

The Jerusalem Post: Prime Minister Netanyahu rips UN for Ahmadinejad 'disgrace,' Goldstone report"

What a travesty!" Netanyahu said of the Goldstone Report. "The biased and unjust report provided a clear-cut test to all governments - will you stand with Israel or with the terrorists? We must know the answer to that question now - not later. If Israel is asked to take more risks for peace we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow," said Netanyahu. "We can take further risks for peace only if we have confidence that we can defend ourselves."

The prime minister stressed that "All of Israel wants peace," noting that Israel made peace with Egypt and Jordan, and vowing that "If the Palestinians truly want peace, we will make peace. But we want a defensible peace, permanent peace."

"We ask the Palestinians to say yes to a Jewish state - as simple, as clear, as elementary as that. We are not foreign conquerors in the land of Israel. We are not strangers to this land - this is our homeland, but as deeply connected as we are to this place, we recognize that the Palestinians also live here and they want a home, we want to live side by side in peace, prosperity and dignity."