Netanyahu calls Mideast conflicts choice between 'blessing or a curse,' warns about Israel's 'long arm'
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
UNITED NATIONS, New York - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu underscored the conflicts in the Middle East as a choice between "a blessing or a curse," as he warned Iran's "tyrants" about Israel's ability to defend and avenge itself.
"If you strike us, we will strike you," Netanyahu said. "There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that's true of the entire Middle East: Far from being lambs led to the slaughter, Israel's soldiers have fought back with incredible courage and with heroic sacrifice."
Netanyahu took the podium in front of a partially empty General Assembly, with some delegates walking out, but those who gathered to hear him offered raucous applause ahead of his speech. Seemingly absent from the speech was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was hosting a global health security event on the sidelines of UNGA.
He revealed that he almost did not attend the U.N. High-Level Week, but he felt a need to "set the record straight," which included laying out the choice the world faces.
Netanyahu brought several families with loved ones held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza to New York and once again called for their freedom, noting that, "I'll say this one more time, we remain focused on our sacred mission, bringing our hostages home. And we will not stop until that mission is complete."
"Israel seeks peace," Netanyahu said. "Israel yearns for peace. Israel has made peace and will make peace again - yet, we face savage enemies who seek our annihilation, and we must defend ourselves against those savage murderers."
Netanyahu framed the issue as a choice between "a blessing or a curse," with Iran's "unremitting aggression" as the "curse" against the "blessing" of reconciliation between Arab nations and Israel.
"A normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel seemed closer than ever. But then came the curse of Oct. 7," Netanyahu said. "Thousands of Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists from Gaza burst into Israel in pickup trucks, on motorcycles. And they committed unimaginable atrocities."
The prime minister hammered again on Iran's aggression, warning that if left unchecked, it will "endanger every single country in the Middle East and many, many countries in the rest of the world."
"Iran seeks to impose its radicalism well beyond the Middle East," Netanyahu warned. "That's why it funds terror networks on five continents. That's why it builds ballistic missiles for nuclear warheads to threaten the entire world."
"For too long, the world is appeasing Iran. It turns a blind eye to its internal repression. It turns a blind eye to its external aggression," he added. "Well, that appeasement must end, and that appeasement must end now."
Netanyahu called on the U.N. Security Council to "snap back" sanctions against Iran and do everything in the organization's power to "ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons."
However, he lamented that the organization has an apparent bias against Israel and in favor of the Palestinians, citing the "automatic majority" of countries that will vote in favor of any policy that hurts Israel.
"For the Palestinians, this U.N. House of darkness is home court," Netanyahu said. "They know that in this swamp of antisemitic bile, there's an automatic majority willing to demonize the Jewish state on anything in this anti-Israel, flat Earth society. Any false charge, any outlandish allegation can muster a majority."
"It's always been about Israel, about Israel's very existence, and I say to you, until Israel, until the Jewish state is treated like other nations, until this antisemitic swamp is drained, the U.N. will be viewed by fair-minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous force," he added.
Fox News' David Hammelburg contributed to this story.
Peter Aitken is a Fox News Digital reporter with a focus on national and global news.
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Israel needs a strong US leader.
Well, that certainly rules out Harris and Walz, considering all the friends he has made in China.
What is wrong with making friends in China?
Well, it's the Chinese Communist government that I'm talking about, not the Chinese people.
You know, the same one that is sending the Chinese Coast Guard into Philippine waters to keep the Philippine Coast Guard from restocking a Philippine outpost island
Although I read about his experiences in China, much the same as mine such as teaching Chinese students, I don't recall seeing any reference to his having meeting with or having any friends who were Chinese officials. He may have come into contact with some whom he would have had a fleeting contact with, such as accepting their thanks for educating their students or for his and his wife's appreciating their culture and traditions. I've probably had closer relationships with government officials or police than he had. I was friends with the highest government authority in Zhengzhou, the Party Secretary, when I was teaching in a high school there. I sat with him and drank moutai with him when we were at banquets, and he did my wife a favour when she asked for his help on something. As well, I had friends among the police.
However, notwithstanding spending these present 18 years of my life in China, believe it or not, my skin hasn't turned yellow and I still vote with absentee ballots for Canada's Conservative Party and I'm not a Communist nor have I ever been asked to become a spy or secret agent for the CPC. I think it would be a BENEFIT and not a detriment for the USA to have a VP who DOESN'T have a paranoid view of China but a common sense one and is actually capable of appreciating the benefits that could be obtained from cooperation instead of confrontation.
That's not the former 'president' traitor. He would give Ukraine to Russia and continue to endorse bibi the murderer/war monger.
As I've posted elsewhere, I read a transcript of his speech and I agree with EVERY WORD Netanyahu spoke at the UN. He was speaking for Israel and its people. He actually said a number of things that I have been saying myself in my posts on NT. Anyone who walked out of or did not show at his speech, and IMO the one he made to Congress, have walked out on Israel, have walked out on every Jew in Israel, have walked out on every Jew in America, and every Jew in the world.
Buzz, nothing you can say can make many Americans agree with Netanyahu.
Maybe we are are more objective than you can be. He is a warmonger using the conflicts as a way to stay in power. It is a tragedy for the whole middle east region.
With someone like him in charge there will never be an end to all the killing and that of course includes the killing of Israelis.
Exactly, without him, Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah would be singing Kumbaya.
Your musical choices aside, Netanyahu cannot bring peace or safety to Israel. It will never happen.
I have to agree with you.
Apparently, no Israeli leader can as it hasn’t happened in 75 years.
So according to you he started the war with Hamas, and on Oct 8 he started the war with Hezbollah, and he started the war with the Houthies. Okay, JR, I guess I belong in a padded cell for thinking otherwise.
Until Hamas and Hezbollah are literally destroyed, and until they surrender and release any remaining hostages, there will never be peace or safety for Israel.
BULLSHIT
YOUR view is BULLSHIT. He was NOT speaking for himself, he was speaking for the existence and people of Israel, and until the people of Israel are safe NO JEW IN THE WORLD IS SAFE. Hasn't history already proven that to you? I guess it takes a Jew to know that he/she can never feel or be ENTIRELY safe unless there is an entirely safe place to go.
The words of a song sung by the Jewish victims of the Nazi concentration camps. It would have been sung in Yiddish. In Yiddish the title is "Vie a hindt zolech geyen?", which translates to "Tell Me Where Can I Go?"
"Every door is closed to me" as was America's door to the passengers of the SS St. Louis. As it was to the WW2 Jewish refugees when Canada's Prime Minister McKenzie King upon being asked how many he would accept uttered the infamous words "None is too many" that became the title of a book about that time in Canada's history. But at least, thank God for Shanghai, it took the Chinese to be human, didn't it.
But the words of the song changed upon Partition, and the ancient homeland of the Jews was reestablished as The State of Israel and opened to them, the only place in the world where it was (save for the terrorists surrounding it) safe to live. You say America is safe? Tell that to the Jewish university students, tell that to the victims and survivors of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre.
Even Ray Charles sang this song as part of his repertoire, but that's completely understandable considering America's civil rights history..