Mr. President. Ladies and gentlemen, I didn’t intend to come here this year. My country is at war fighting for its life, but after I heard the lies and slanders leveled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight. I decided to come here to speak for my people, to speak for my country, to speak for the truth. And here’s the truth. Israel seeks peace. 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 these savage murderers. Our enemies seek not only to destroy us, they seek to destroy our common civilization and return all of us to a dark age of tyranny and terror. When I spoke here last year, I said we faced the same timeless choice that Moses put before the people of Israel thousands of years ago as we were about to enter the promised land, Moses told us that our actions will determine whether we bequeath to future generations, a blessing or a curse, and that is the choice we face today.
The curse of Iran’s unremitting aggression or the blessing of a historic reconciliation between Arab and Jew. In the days that followed that speech, the blessing I spoke of came into sharper focus, a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel seemed closer than ever, but then came the curse of October 7th. Thousands of Iranian backed Hamas from Gaza burst into Israel in pickup trucks on motorcycles, and they committed unimaginable atrocities. They savagely murdered 1200 people. They raped and mutilated women. They beheaded men. They burned babies alive. They burned entire families alive, babies, children, parents, grandparents in scenes reminiscent of the Nazi Holocaust. Hamas kidnapped 251 people from dozens of different countries, dragging them into the dungeons of Gaza. Israel is brought home 154 of these hostages, including 117 who returned alive. I want to assure you, we will not rest until the remaining hostages are brought home too, and some of their family members are here with us today. I ask you to stand up with us is Ellie Stevie, whose Sonny Dunn was abducted from the Nova Music Festival. That was his crime, a music festival.
And these murderers monsters took him, Kobe Smyrna, whose son Jonathan was murdered and his corpse, his corpse was taken into the dungeons, into the terror tunnels of Gaza, a corpse held hostage Ash whose brother Muhammad a brave Arab Israeli soldier was murdered. His body too was taken to Gaza and so was the body of Ifat Hyman’s daughter in bar who was brutally murdered at that same music festival. With us is Sharon Shabi, whose brother Yossi was murdered and who prays for his older brother Ellie, who is still held hostage in Gaza. And with us still is Azar lift from kibbutz near Za kibbutz that was wiped out by the terrorist. Thankfully, we achieved the release of his mother Yohe, but his father who dead is still languishing in an underground terrorist hell of Hamas, of I again promise you, we will your turn your loved one’s home. We will not spare that effort until this holy mission is accomplished.
Ladies and gentlemen, the curse of October 7th began when Hamas invaded Israel from Gaza, but it didn’t end there. Israel was soon forced to defend itself on six more war fronts organized by Iran. On October 8th, Hezbollah attacked us from Lebanon. Since then, they fired over 8,000 rockets at our towns and cities, at our civilians, at our children. Two weeks later, the round back Houthis in Yemen launched drones and missiles at Israel. The first of 250 such attacks including one yesterday aimed at Tel Aviv, Iran. Shiat militias in Syria and Iraq have targeted Israel dozens of times over the past year as well. Fueled by Iran, Palestinian terrorists in Judean, Samaria perpetrated scores of attacks there and throughout Israel.
And last April, for the first time ever, Iran directly attacked Israel from its own territory, firing 300 drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles at us. I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran. If you strike us, we will strike you. There is no place. 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 soldiers if fought back with incredible courage and with heroic sacrifice. And I have another message for this assembly and for the world outside this hall. We are winning ladies and gentlemen. As Israel defends itself against Iran in the seven front war, the line separating the blessing and the curse could not be more clear.
This is the map I presented here last year. It’s a map of a blessing. It shows Israel, Israel and its Arab partners forming a land bridge connecting Asia and Europe between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Across this bridge, we will lay ray lines energy pipelines, fiber optic cables, and this will serve the betterment of 2 billion people. Now look at this second map. It’s a map. Look at the second map. It’s a map of a curse. It’s a map of an arc of terror that Iran has created and imposed from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. Iran’s malignant arc has shut down international waterways. It cuts off trade. It destroys millions, destroys nations from within and FLTs misery on millions on the one hand, on the one hand, a bright blessing, a future of hope. On the other hand, a dark future of despair.
And if you think this dark map is only a curse for Israel, if you think that, then you should think again because Iran’s aggression, if it’s not checked, will endanger every single country in the Middle East and many, many countries in the rest of the world. Because Iran seeks to impose its radicalism well beyond the Middle East. 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 appeased Iran. It turns a blind eye to its internal repression. It turns a blind eye to its external aggression. Well, that appeasement must end and that appeasement must end. Now, nations of the world should support the brave people of Iran who want to rid themselves of this evil regime. Responsible governments should not only support Israel in rolling back Iran’s aggression. They should join Israel. They should join Israel in stopping Iran’s nuclear weapons program in this body in the Security council. We’re going to have a deliberation in a few months, and I call on the security council to snap back UN Security Council sanctions against Iran because we must all do everything in our power to ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons.
For decades, I’ve been warning the world against Iran’s nuclear program. Our actions delayed this program by perhaps a decade, but we haven’t stopped it. We’ve delayed it, but we haven’t stopped it. Iran now seeks to weaponize its nuclear program for the sake of the peace and security of all your countries, for the sake of the peace and security of the entire world. We must not let that happen. And I assure you, Israel will do everything in its power to make sure it doesn’t happen. So ladies and gentlemen, the question before us is simple. Which of these two maps that I showed you will shape our future? Will it be the blessings of peace and prosperity for Israel, our Arab partners and the rest of the world? Or will it be the curse in which Iran and its proxies spread, carnage and chaos everywhere?
Israel has already made its choice. We’ve decided to advance the blessing. We’re building a partnership for peace with our Arab neighbors while fighting the forces of terror that threatened that peace. For nearly a year, the brave men and women of the IDF have been systematically crushing Hamas’ terror army that once ruled Gaza On October 7th, the day of that invasion into Israel, that terror army numbered nearly 4,000, 40,000 terrorists. It was armed with more than 15,000 rockets. It had 350 miles of terror tunnels, an underground network bigger than the New York subway system, which they used to wreak havoc above and below ground. A year later, the IDF is killed or captured. More than half of these terrorists destroyed over 90% of their rocket arsenal and eliminated the key segments of their terror tunnel network and major military operations in major military operations. We destroyed nearly half of Hamas’, sorry, nearly all of Hamas’ terror battalions, 23 out of 24 battalions. Now to complete our victory, we are focused on mopping up Hamas’ remaining fighting capabilities. We are taking out senior terrorist commanders and destroying remaining terrorist infrastructure. But all the while, all the while, and 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.
Now ladies and gentlemen, even with Hamas’ greatly diminished military capability, the terrorists still exercise some governing power in Gaza by stealing the food that we enable aid agencies to bring into Gaza. Hama steals the food and then they hike the prices, they feed their bellies, and then they fill their coffers with money that they extort from their own people. They sell the stolen food and exorbitant prices, and that’s how they stay in power. Well, this too has to end and we’re working to bring it to an end. And the reason is simple because if Hama stays in power, it’ll regroup, re-arm and attack Israel again and again and again as it is vowed to do so. Hamas has got to go.
Just imagine for those who say, well, Hamas has to stay. It has to be part of a postwar Gaza. Imagine in a postwar situation in World War War ii, imagine allowing the defeated Nazis in 1945 to rebuild Germany. It’s inconceivable. It’s ridiculous. It didn’t happen then. It’s not going to happen now. This is why Israel will reject any rule for Hamas in a postwar Gaza. We don’t seek to resettle Gaza. What we seek is a demilitarized and deradicalize Gaza. Only then, only then can we ensure that this round of fighting will be the last round of fighting. We are ready to work with regional and other partners to support a local civilian administration in Gaza committed to peaceful coexistence. As for the hostages, I have a message for the Hamas captors. Let them go. Let them go. All of them. Those alive today must be returned alive and the remains of those whom you brutally killed must be returned to their families. Those families here with us today and others in Israel deserve to have a resting place for their loved ones, a place where they can grieve and remember them this war.
Ladies and gentlemen, this war can come to an end. Now all that has to happen is for hama to surrender, lay down its arms and release all the hostages. But if they don’t, but if they don’t, we will fight until we achieve victory. Total victory. There is no substitute for it. Israel must also defeat Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah is the quintessential terror organization in the world today. It has tentacles that span in all continents. It has murdered more Americans and more Frenchmen than any group except Bin Laden. It’s murdered the citizens of many countries represented in this room and it is attacked Israel viciously over the last 20 years. In the last year, completely unprovoked, a day after Hamas massacre on October 7th, Hezbollah began attacks against Israel, which forced more than 60,000 Israelis on our northern border to leave their homes becoming refugees in their own land. Hezbollah turned vibrant towns in the north of Israel into ghost towns. So I want you to think about this in equivalent American terms. Just imagine if terrorists turned El Paso in San Diego into ghost towns. Then ask yourself, how long would the American government tolerate that a day, a week, a month? I doubt they tolerate it even for a single day. Yet Israel has been tolerating this intolerable situation for nearly a year. Well, I’ve come here today to say enough is enough.
We won’t rest until our citizens can return safely to their homes. We will not accept a terror army perched on our northern border able to perpetrate another October 7th style massacre. For 18 years, Hezbollah brazenly refused to implement UN Security Council resolution 1701, which requires it to move its forces away from our borders. Instead, Hezbollah moved right up to our border. They secretly duck terror tunnels to infiltrate our communities and indiscriminately fired thousands of rockets into our towns and villages. They fire these rockets and missiles not from military sites, not from that. They do that too, but they fire those rockets and missiles after they placed them in schools, in hospitals, in apartment buildings, and in the private homes of the citizens of Lebanon. They endangered their own people. They put a missile in every kitchen, a rocket in every garage. I said to the people of Lebanon this week, get out of the death trap that Hezbollah has put you in. Don’t let Nosah drag Lebanon into the abyss. We’re not at war with you. We’re at war with Hezbollah, which has hijacked your country and threatens to destroy ours as long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war. Israel has no choice, and Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safely. And that’s exactly what we’re doing.
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