[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 17]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 23461-23463]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      REMARKS OF THE ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER AT THE UNITED NATIONS

                                 ______
                                 



                          HON. SHELLEY BERKLEY

                               of nevada

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 30, 2009

  Ms. BERKLEY. Madam Speaker, I seek to call my colleagues' attention 
to the powerful and important speech that Israeli Prime Minister 
Benjamin Netanyahu delivered to the United Nations General Assembly on 
September 24, 2009. In it, he calls on all nations to stand with Israel 
in confronting the threats posed by Iran and by terrorists around the 
world. This is a conflict between civilization and barbarity, he says, 
and the record of the United Nations hangs in the balance.

   Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Speech to the General Assembly

       Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, nearly 62 years ago, 
     the United Nations recognized the rights 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 after the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged 
     with preventing the reoccurrence of such horrendous events.
       Nothing has undermined that mission, nothing has impeded it 
     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 to exterminate my 
     People. They left detailed minutes of that meeting and these 
     minutes have been preserved for posterity by successive 
     German governments. Here is a copy of the minutes of the 
     meeting of senior Nazi officials instructing the Nazi 
     government exactly how to carry out the extermination of the 
     Jewish people. Is this protocol a lie? Is the German 
     government, are all German governments lying?
       A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the 
     original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau 
     concentration camp. These plans of the Auschwitz-Birkenau 
     concentration camps I now hold in my hand. They contain a 
     signature by Heinrich Himmler--Hitler's deputy himself. Are 
     these plans of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp 
     where one million Jews were murdered, are they a lie too?
       This June, President Obama visited another concentration 
     camp--one of many--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 too?
       One-third of all Jews perished in the great conflagration 
     of the Holocaust. Nearly every Jewish family was affected, 
     including my own. My wife's grandparents, her father's two 
     sisters and his three brothers, and the aunts, and uncles and 
     cousins--all murdered by the Nazis. Is this a lie?

[[Page 23462]]

       Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from 
     this podium. To those who refused to come and to those who 
     left 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 the murder of six million Jews while 
     promising to wipe out the State of Israel, the State of the 
     Jews. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the 
     United Nations!
       Now, perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious 
     regime, perhaps they threaten only the Jews. Well, if you 
     think that, you're wrong--dead wrong. History has shown us 
     time and time again that what starts with attacks on the Jews 
     eventually ends up engulfing many, many others.
       For 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 across the globe with a 
     murderous violence that knows no bounds and with a cold-
     blooded impartiality in the choice of its 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 
     else deemed not 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.
       Now 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 our future offers all nations magnificent bounties of 
     hope because the pace of progress is growing, and it 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 fuel and yes, we will clean up the planet.
       I am proud that my country Israel is at the forefront of 
     many of these advances--in science and technology, in 
     medicine and biology, in agriculture and water, in energy and 
     the environment. These innovations in my country and many of 
     your countries 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.
       This is why the greatest threat facing the world today is 
     the marriage between religious fundamentalism and the weapons 
     of mass destruction. The most urgent challenge facing this 
     body today is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring 
     nuclear weapons.
       Are the members 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 then gunned down Iranian 
     protesters who died on the sidewalks and on the streets 
     choking in their own blood? Will the international community 
     thwart the world's most pernicious sponsor and practitioner 
     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 thousands of people who have been protesting and 
     demonstrating outside this hall all this week. Will the 
     United Nations stand by their side?
       Well, 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 in the United Nations have condemned their 
     victims. This is exactly what a recent UN report on Gaza did, 
     falsely equating terrorists with those they targeted.
       For eight long years, Hamas fired rockets, from Gaza on 
     nearby Israeli cities and citizens--thousands of missiles, 
     mortars--hurtling down from the sky on schools, homes, 
     shopping centers, bus stops. Year after year, as these 
     missiles were deliberately fired on our civilians, not a 
     single UN resolution--not one!--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 was very painful. We 
     dismantled 21 settlements--really bedroom communities and 
     farms. We uprooted over 8,000 Israelis. We just yanked them 
     out from their homes. We did this because many in Israel 
     believed that this would get peace.
       Well, we didn't get peace. Instead we got an Iranian backed 
     terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. Life in the Israeli 
     towns and cities immediately next to Gaza became nothing less 
     than a nightmare. You see the Hamas rocket launchers and the 
     rocket attacks not only continued after we left, they 
     actually increased dramatically. They increased tenfold. And 
     again, the UN was silent--absolutely silent.
       Finally, after eight years of this unremitting assault, 
     Israel was 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. This 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.
       I'm not passing judgment. I'm stating a fact--a fact that 
     is the product of the decision of great and honorable men--
     the leaders of Britain and the United States fighting an evil 
     force in World War II.
       It is also a fact that 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 directed against the rocket 
     launchers themselves. Now mind you that was no easy task 
     because the terrorists were firing their missiles from homes 
     and from schools. They were using mosques as weapons depots, 
     as missile caches, and they were 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. We sent thousands 
     and thousands of text messages to the Palestinian residents. 
     We made thousands and thousands of cellular phone calls 
     urging them to vacate, 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 a clear-cut case of aggressor and victim, 
     whom do you think the United Nations Human Rights Council 
     decided 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!
       Now, Delegates of the United Nations, and the Governments 
     whom you represent, you have a decision to make. 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 be mustered to declare that the 
     earth is flat.
       If you had to choose a date when the United Nations began 
     its descent, almost a free fall, and lost the respect of many 
     thoughtful people in the international community, it was that 
     decision in 1975 to equate Zionism with racism. Now this body 
     has a choice to make. If it does not reject this biased 
     report, it would vitiate itself: It would begin or re-begin 
     the process of vitiating itself from its own relevance and 
     importance.
       But it would do something else; it would send a message to 
     terrorists everywhere, saying: Terrorism pays; all you have 
     to do is launch your attacks from densely populated areas, 
     and you will win immunity.
       And then a third thing: in condemning Israel, this body 
     would also deal a mortal blow to peace. Let me explain why. 
     When Israel left Gaza, many hoped that the missile attacks 
     would stop. Others believed that even if they didn't stop, at 
     the very least Israel would have made this gesture, an 
     extraordinary gesture for peace, but it would have 
     international legitimacy to exercise its right of self-
     defense if peace failed. What legitimacy? What self-defense?
       The same UN that cheered Israel as we left Gaza, the same 
     UN that promised to back our right of self-defense, now 
     accuses us--my people, my country--of being war criminals? 
     And for what? For acting responsibly in self-defense, for 
     acting in a way that any country would act with a restraint 
     unmatched by many. What a travesty!
       Ladies and gentlemen, Israel justly defended itself against 
     terror. This biased and unjust report provides a clear-cut 
     test for all governments. Will you stand with Israel or will 
     you stand with the terrorists?

[[Page 23463]]

       We must know the answer to that question now. Now--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.
       And make no mistake about it. 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 my 
     people, 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 
     this resolution. The Arabs rejected it and invaded the 
     embryonic Jewish state with hopes to annihilate it. We ask 
     the Palestinians to finally do what they refused to do for 62 
     years: Say yes to a Jewish state! As simple, as clear, as 
     elementary as that. 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. It 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 
     great 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. This 
     is our homeland.
       But as deeply connected as we are to our homeland, we also 
     recognize that the Palestinians also live there and they want 
     a home of their own. We want to live side by side with them, 
     two free peoples living in peace, living in prosperity, 
     living in dignity.
       Peace, prosperity and dignity require one other element. We 
     must have security. The Palestinians should have all the 
     powers to govern themselves except a handful of powers that 
     could endanger Israel.
       This is why the Palestinian state must be effectively 
     demilitarized. I say effectively, because we don't want 
     another Gaza, or another South Lebanon, another Iranian 
     backed terror base abutting Jerusalem and perched on the 
     hills a few kilometers from Tel Aviv. We want peace.
       I believe that with good will and with hard work, such a 
     peace can be achieved. But it requires from all of us to roll 
     back the forces of terror, led by Iran, that seek to destroy 
     peace, that seek to eliminate Israel and to overthrow the 
     world order. The question facing the international community 
     is whether it is prepared to confront those forces or to 
     accommodate them.
       Over 70 years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he 
     called the ``confirmed unteachability of mankind.'' By that 
     he meant the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to 
     sleep and to slumber 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 the emergency comes, until self-preservation 
     strikes its jarring gong.''
       Ladies and gentlemen, I speak here today in the hope that 
     Churchill's assessment of the ``unteachability of mankind'' 
     is for once proven wrong. I speak here today in the hope that 
     we can learn from history--that we can prevent danger in 
     time.
       In the spirit of the timeless words spoken to Joshua over 
     3,000 years ago, let us be strong and of good courage. Let us 
     confront this peril, secure our future and, God willing, 
     forge an enduring peace for generations to come.
       [Translation from the Hebrew] ``The Lord will give strength 
     to His people, the Lord will bless His people with peace.''

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