Just this week, the IDF destroyed large percentages of Hezbollah’s rockets, which had built with Iran’s funding for three decades. We took out senior military commanders who not only shed Israeli blood, but American and French blood as well, and then we took out their replacements and then the replacements of their replacements. And we’ll continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are made. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re committed to removing the curse of terrorism that threatens all civilized societies. But to truly realize the blessing of a new Middle East, we must continue the path we paved with the Abraham Accords four years ago. Above all this means achieving a historic peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia and having seen the blessings that we’ve already brought with the Abraham Accords, the millions of Israelis who’ve already flown back and forth across the Arabian Peninsula, over the skies of Saudi Arabia to the Gulf countries, the trade, the tourism, the joint ventures, the peace, the peace.
I say to you what blessings, such a peace with Saudi Arabia would bring. It would be a boon to the security and economy of our two countries. It would boost trade and tourism across the region. It would help transform the Middle East into a global juggernaut. Our two countries could cooperate on energy, water, agriculture, artificial intelligence, and many, many other fields. Such a peace, I’m sure would be a true pivot of history. It would usher in a historic reconciliation between the Arab world and Israel, between Islam and Judaism, between Mecca and Jerusalem. While Israel is committed to achieving such a peace, Iran and its terror, proxies are committed to scuttling it. That’s why one of the best ways to foil Iran’s nefarious designs is to achieve the peace. Such a peace would be the foundation for an even broader Abrahamic alliance. And that alliance would include the United States, Israel, Kurd, Arab peace partners, Saudi Arabia and others who choose the blessing of peace, it advance security and prosperity across the Middle East and bring enormous benefits to the rest of the world With American support and leadership. I believe this vision can materialize and much sooner than people think. And as the prime minister of Israel, I will do everything in my power to make it happen. This is an opportunity that we and the world should not let go by.
Ladies and gentlemen, Israel has made its choice. We seek to move forward to a bright age of prosperity and peace. Iran and its proxies have also made their choice. They want to move back to a dark age of terror and war. And now I have a question and I pose that question to you. What choice will you make? Will your nation stand with Israel? Will you stand with democracy at peace, or will you stand with Iran? A brutal dictatorship that subjugates its own people exports terrorism across the globe. In this battle between good and evil, there must be no equivocation. When you stand with Israel, you stand for your own values and your own interests. Yes, we’re defending ourselves, but we’re also defending you against a common enemy that through violence and terror seeks to destroy our way of life. So there should be no confusion about this, but unfortunately there is – a lot of it in many countries and in this very hall, as I’ve just heard, good is portrayed as evil and evil is portrayed as good.
We see this moral confusion when Israel is falsely accused of genocide. When we defend ourselves against enemies who try to commit genocide against us. We see this too when Israel is absurdly accused by the ICC prosecutor of deliberately starving Palestinians in Gaza. What an absurdity. We help bring in 700,000 tons of food into Gaza. That’s more than 3000 calories a day for every man, woman, and child in Gaza. We see this moral confusion when Israel is falsely accused of deliberately targeting civilians. We don’t want to see a single person, a single innocent person die. That’s always a tragedy. And that’s why we do so much to minimize civilian casualties. Even as our enemies use civilians as human shields. And no army has done what Israel is doing to minimize civilian casualties. We drop flyers, we send text messages, we make phone calls by the millions to ensure that Palestinian civilians get out of harm’s way.
We spare no effort in this noble pursuit. We see yet another profound moral confusion. When self-described progressives march against the democracy of Israel. Don’t they realize they support the Iranian backed goons in Tehran and in Gaza, the goons who gunned down protestors, murder women for not covering their hair and hang gays in public squares. Some progressives! According to the US Director of National Intelligence, Iran’s funds and fuels many of the protestors against Israel. Who knows, maybe some of the protestors or even many of the protestors outside this building now, ladies and gentlemen, king Solomon, who reigned in our eternal capital Jerusalem 3000 years ago proclaimed he proclaimed something that is familiar to all of you. He said, there is nothing new under the sun. Well, in an age of space, travel, quantum physics and artificial intelligence, some would argue that’s a debatable statement. But one thing is undeniable. There is definitely nothing new at the United Nations.
Take it from me. I first spoke from this podium as Israel’s ambassador to the UN in 1984. That’s exactly 40 years ago. And in my maiden speech here, I think it’s the same podium. By the way, in my maiden speech here, I spoke against the proposal to expel Israel from this body. Four decades later, I find myself defending Israel against that same preposterous proposal. And who’s leading the charge this time? Not Hamas, but ABAs s Palestinian authority President Machmoud Abbas. This is the man who claims he wants peace with Israel, yet he still refuses to condemn the horrific massacre of October 7th. He’s still paying hundreds of millions to terrorists who murder Israelis and Americans. It’s called Pay for Slay. The more you murder, the more you get paid. And he still wages unremitting, diplomatic warfare against Israel’s right to exist and against Israel’s right to defend itself.
And by the way, they amount to the same thing. Because if you can’t defend yourself, you can’t exist. Not in our neighborhood certainly, and maybe not in yours. Standing in this podium 40 years ago, I told the sponsors of that outrageous resolution to expel Israel. Gentlemen, check your fanaticism at the door. Today, I tell President Abbas and all of you who would shamefully support that resolution. Check your fanaticism at the door. The singling out of the one and only Jewish state continues to be a moral stain on the United Nations. It has made this once respected institution contemptible in the eyes of decent people everywhere. But for the Palestinians, this UN house of darkness is home court. 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. In the last decade, there have been more resolutions passed against Israel in this hall at the UN General Assembly than against the entire world combined. Actually more than twice as many. Since 2014, this body condemned Israel 174 times. It condemned all the other countries in the world. 73 times. That’s more than 100 extra condemnations for the Jewish state. What hypocrisy, what a double standard. What a joke. So the UN’s hostility.
So all the speeches you heard today, all the hostility directed at Israel this year. It’s not about Gaza, it’s about Israel. 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 UN will be viewed by fair-minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous farce. Now, given the antisemitism at the un, it should surprise no one that the prosecutor at the ICC one of the UN’s affiliated organs is considering issuing arrest warrants against me. And Israel’s defense minister, the democratically elected leader, leaders, of the Democratic state of Israel, the ICC prosecutors rushed to judgment, his refusal to treat Israel with its independent courts. The way other democracies are treated is hard to explain by anything other than pure antisemitism. Ladies and gentlemen, the real war criminals are not in Israel, they’re in Iran, they’re in Gaza, in Syria, in Lebanon, in Yemen. Those of you who stand with these war criminals, those of you who stand with evil against good, with a curse against the blessing, those of you who do so should be ashamed of yourselves.
But I have a message for you. Israel will win this battle. We’ll win this battle because we don’t have a choice. After generations, after generations in which our people were slaughtered, remorselessly, butchered, and no one raised a finger in our defense, we now have a state. We now have a brave army, an army of incomparable courage, and we are defending ourselves as the book of Samuel says in the Bible, betzach Yisroel lo yeshaker – the eternity of Israel will not falter in the Jewish people’s epic journey from antiquity and our odyssey, through the tempest and upheavals of modern times, that ancient promise has always been kept and it will hold true for all time to borrow a great poet’s phrase, Israel will not go gently into that good night. We will never need to rage against the dying of the light because the torch of Israel will forever shine bright to the people of Israel and to the soldiers of Israel. I say be strong and of good courage. His cool them too. The people of Israel live now tomorrow forever. Thank you.
Speaker
On behalf of the Assembly, I wish to thank the prime minister of the state of Israel.
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