November 24, 2014
Delivered to UN General Assembly at
around 4:00 PM today (Nov 24/14) by Ambassador Ron Prosor
Mr. President,
I stand before the world as a proud representative of
the State of Israel and the Jewish people. I stand tall before you knowing that
truth and morality are on my side. And yet, I stand here knowing that
today in this Assembly, truth will be turned on its head and morality cast
aside.
The fact of the matter is that when members of the
international community speak about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a fog
descends to cloud all logic and moral clarity. The result isn’t
realpolitik, its surrealpolitik.
The world’s unrelenting focus on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an injustice to tens of millions of victims of
tyranny and terrorism in the Middle East. As
we speak, Yazidis, Bahai, Kurds, Christians and Muslims are being executed and
expelled by radical extremists at a rate of 1,000 people per month.
How many resolutions did you pass last week to address
this crisis? And how many special sessions did you call for? The answer
is zero. What does this say about international concern for human life?
Not much, but it speaks volumes about the hypocrisy of the international
community.
I stand before you to speak the truth. Of the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa,
less than half a percent are truly free - and they are all citizens of Israel.
Israeli Arabs are some of the most educated Arabs in
the world. They are our leading physicians and surgeons, they are elected to
our parliament, and they serve as judges on our Supreme Court. Millions
of men and women in the Middle East would
welcome these opportunities and freedoms.
Nonetheless, nation after nation, will stand at this
podium today and criticize Israel
– the small island of democracy in a region plagued by tyranny and oppression.
Mr. President,
Our conflict has never been about the
establishment of a Palestinian state. It has always been about the
existence of the Jewish state.
Sixty seven years ago this week, on November 29, 1947,
the United Nations voted to partition the land into a Jewish state and an Arab
state. Simple. The Jews said yes. The Arabs said no. But they didn’t just
say no. Egypt, Jordan, Syria,
Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon launched a war of
annihilation against our newborn state.
This is the historical truth that the Arabs are trying
to distort. The Arabs’ historic mistake continues to be felt – in lives lost in
war, lives lost to terrorism, and lives scarred by the Arab’s narrow political
interests.
According to the United Nations, about 700,000
Palestinians were displaced in the war initiated by the Arabs themselves.
At the same time, some 850,000 Jews were forced to flee from Arab countries.
Why is it, that 67 years later, the displacement of
the Jews has been completely forgotten by this institution while the
displacement of the Palestinians is the subject of an annual debate?
The difference is that Israel did its utmost to integrate
the Jewish refugees into society. The Arabs did just the opposite.
The worst oppression of the Palestinian people takes
place in Arab nations. In most of the Arab world, Palestinians are denied citizenship and are
aggressively discriminated against. They are barred from owning land and
prevented from entering certain professions.
And yet none - not one - of these crimes are mentioned
in the resolutions before you.
If you were truly concerned about the plight of the
Palestinian people there would be one, just one, resolution to address the
thousands of Palestinians killed in Syria. And if you were so
truly concerned about the Palestinians there would be at least one resolution
to denounce the treatment of Palestinians in Lebanese refugee camps.
But there isn’t. The reason is that today’s
debate is not about speaking for peace or speaking for the Palestinian people –
it is about speaking against Israel.
It is nothing but a hate and bashing festival against Israel.
Mr. President,
The European nations claim to stand for Liberté,
Égalité, Fraternité - freedom, equality, and brotherhood – but nothing could be
farther from the truth.
I often hear European leaders proclaim that Israel has the
right to exist in secure borders. That’s very nice. But I
have to say – it makes about as much sense as me standing here and proclaiming Sweden’s right
to exist in secure borders.
When it comes to matters of security, Israel learned the hard way that we cannot rely
on others – certainly not Europe.
In 1973, on Yom Kippur – the holiest day on the Jewish
calendar - the surrounding Arab nations launched an attack against Israel. In the
hours before the war began, Golda Meir, our Prime Minister then, made the
difficult decision not to launch a preemptive strike. The Israeli
Government understood that if we launched a preemptive strike, we would lose
the support of the international community.
As the Arab armies advanced on every front, the
situation in Israel
grew dire. Our casualty count was growing and we were running dangerously low
on weapons and ammunition. In this, our hour of need, President Nixon and
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, agreed to send Galaxy planes loaded with
tanks and ammunition to resupply our troops. The only problem was that
the Galaxy planes needed to refuel on route to Israel.
The Arab States were closing in and
our very existence was threatened – and yet, Europe
was not even willing to let the planes refuel. The U.S. stepped in once again and negotiated that
the planes be allowed to refuel in the Azores.
The government and people of Israel will never forget that when our very
existence was at stake, only one country came to our aid – the United States of America.
Israel is tired of hollow promises from European
leaders. The Jewish people have a long memory. We will never ever
forget that you failed us in the 1940s. You failed us in 1973. And
you are failing us again today.
Every European parliament that voted to prematurely
and unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state is giving the Palestinians
exactly what they want - statehood without peace. By handing them a state
on a silver platter, you are rewarding unilateral actions and taking away any
incentive for the Palestinians to negotiate or compromise or renounce
violence. You are sending the message that the Palestinian Authority can
sit in a government with terrorists and incite violence against Israel without
paying any price.
The first E.U. member to officially recognize a
Palestinian state was Sweden.
One has to wonder why the Swedish Government was so anxious to take this
step. When it comes to other conflicts in our region, the Swedish
Government calls for direct negotiations between the parties – but for the
Palestinians, surprise, surprise, they roll out the red carpet.
State Secretary Söder may think she is here to
celebrate her government’s so-called historic recognition, when in reality it’s
nothing more than an historic mistake.
The Swedish Government may host the Nobel Prize
ceremony, but there is nothing noble about their cynical political campaign to
appease the Arabs in order to get a seat on the Security Council. Nations
on the Security Council should have sense, sensitivity, and sensibility. Well, the Swedish Government has shown no sense, no
sensitivity and no sensibility. Just nonsense.
Israel learned the hard way that listening to the
international community can bring about devastating consequences. In
2005, we unilaterally dismantled every settlement and removed every citizen
from the Gaza Strip. Did this bring us any closer to peace? Not at all.
It paved the way for Iran
to send its terrorist proxies to establish a terror stronghold on our doorstep.
I can assure you that we won’t make the same mistake
again. When
it comes to our security, we cannot and will not rely on others – Israel must be
able to defend itself by itself.
Mr. President,
The State of Israel is the land of our forefathers –
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is the land where Moses led the Jewish
people, where David built his palace, where Solomon built the Jewish Temple,
and where Isaiah saw a vision of eternal peace.
For thousands of years, Jews have lived continuously
in the land of Israel. We endured through the
rise and fall of the Assyrian, Babylonian, Greek and Roman Empires. And
we endured through thousands of years of persecution, expulsions and
crusades. The bond between the Jewish people and the Jewish land is
unbreakable.
Nothing can change one simple truth - Israel is our home and Jerusalem is our eternal capital.
At the same time, we recognize that Jerusalem has special meaning for other
faiths. Under Israeli sovereignty, all people – and I will repeat that,
all people - regardless of religion and nationality can visit the city’s holy
sites. And we intend to keep it this way. The only ones trying to
change the status quo on the Temple
Mount are Palestinian
leaders.
President Abbas is telling his people that Jews are
contaminating the Temple
Mount. He has
called for days of rage and urged Palestinians to prevent Jews from visiting
the Temple Mount using (quote) “all means”
necessary. These words are as irresponsible as they are unacceptable.
You don’t have to be Catholic to
visit the Vatican, you don’t
have to be Jewish to visit the Western Wall, but some Palestinians would like
to see the day when only Muslims can visit the Temple Mount.
You, the international community, are lending a hand
to extremists and fanatics. You, who preach tolerance and religious freedom,
should be ashamed. Israel
will never let this happen. We will make sure that the holy places remain
open to all people of all faiths for all time.
Mr. President,
No one wants peace more than Israel.
No one needs to explain the importance of peace to parents who have sent their
child to defend our homeland. No one knows the stakes of success or
failure better than we Israelis do. The people of Israel have shed too many tears and
buried too many sons and daughters.
We are ready for peace, but we are not naïve. Israel’s
security is paramount. Only a strong and secure Israel can achieve a comprehensive
peace.
The past month should make it clear to anyone that Israel has
immediate and pressing security needs. In recent weeks, Palestinian terrorists
have shot and stabbed our citizens and twice driven their cars into crowds of
pedestrians. Just a few days ago, terrorists armed with axes and a gun
savagely attacked Jewish worshipers during morning prayers. We have
reached the point when Israelis can’t even find sanctuary from terrorism in the
sanctuary of a synagogue.
These attacks didn’t emerge out of a
vacuum. They are the results of years of indoctrination and incitement. A Jewish proverb teaches: “The instruments of
both death and life are in the power of the tongue.”
As a Jew and as an Israeli, I know
with utter certainly that when our enemies say they want to attack us, they
mean it.
Hamas’s genocidal charter calls for
the destruction of Israel
and the murder of Jews worldwide.
For years, Hamas and other terrorist groups have sent suicide bombers into our
cities, launched rockets into our towns, and sent terrorists to kidnap and
murder our citizens.
And what about the Palestinian Authority? It is
leading a systemic campaign of incitement. In schools, children are being taught that ‘Palestine’ will stretch from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. In mosques, religious leaders
are spreading vicious libels accusing Jews of destroying Muslim holy
sites. In sports stadiums, teams are named after terrorists. And in
newspapers, cartoons urge Palestinians to commit terror attacks against
Israelis.
Children in most of the world grow up watching
cartoons of Mickey Mouse singing and dancing. Palestinian children also grow up watching Mickey
Mouse, but on Palestinians national television, a twisted figure dressed as
Mickey Mouse dances in an explosive belt and chants “Death to America and
death to the Jews.”
I challenge you to stand up here today and do
something constructive for a change. Publically denounce the violence,
denounce the incitement, and denounce the culture of hate.
Most people believe that at its core, the conflict is
a battle between Jews and Arabs or Israelis and Palestinians. They are
wrong. The
battle that we are witnessing is a battle between those who sanctify life and
those who celebrate death.
Following the savage attack in a Jerusalem synagogue, celebrations erupted in
Palestinian towns and villages. People were dancing in the street and
distributing candy. Young men posed with axes, loudspeakers at mosques
called out congratulations, and the terrorists were hailed as “martyrs” and
“heroes.”
This isn’t the first time that we saw the Palestinians
celebrate the murder of innocent civilians. We saw them rejoice after
every terrorist attack on Israeli civilians and they even took to the streets
to celebrate the September 11 attack on the World
Trade Center
right here in New York City.
Imagine the type of state this society would
produce. Does the Middle East really
need another terror-ocracy? Some members of the international community
are aiding and abetting its creation.
Mr. President,
As we came into the United Nations,
we passed the flags of all 193 member States. If you take the time to count,
you will discover that there are 15 flags with a crescent and 25 flags with a
cross. And then there is one flag with a Jewish Star of David. Amidst all the nations of the world there is one state
– just one small nation state for the Jewish people.
And for some people, that is one too many.
As I stand before you today I am reminded of all the
years when Jewish people paid for the world’s ignorance and indifference in
blood. Those days are no more.
We will never apologize for being a
free and independent people in our sovereign state. And we will never
apologize for defending ourselves.
To the nations that continue to allow
prejudice to prevail over truth, I say “J’accuse.”
I accuse you of hypocrisy. I accuse you of duplicity.
I accuse you of lending legitimacy to those who seek
to destroy our State.
I accuse you of speaking about Israel’s right
of self-defense in theory, but denying it in practice.
And I accuse you of demanding concessions from Israel, but
asking nothing of the Palestinians.
In the face of these offenses, the verdict is
clear. You
are not for peace and you are not for the Palestinian people. You are
simply against Israel.
Members of the international community have a choice
to make.
You can recognize Israel as the nation-state of the
Jewish people, or permit the Palestinian leadership to deny our history without
consequence.
You can publically proclaim that the
so-called “claim of return” is a non-starter, or you can allow this claim to
remain the major obstacle to any peace agreement.
You can work to end Palestinian incitement, or stand
by as hatred and extremism take root for generations to come.
You can prematurely recognize a Palestinian state, or
you can encourage the Palestinian Authority to break its pact with Hamas and
return to direct negotiations.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Howard Liebman
Chief of staff / Chef de cabinet
Hon. Irwin Cotler, P.C., O.C. / c.p., o.c.
Member of Parliament for Mount Royal / Député de Mont-Royal
Chief of staff / Chef de cabinet
Hon. Irwin Cotler, P.C., O.C. / c.p., o.c.
Member of Parliament for Mount Royal / Député de Mont-Royal
316 - 4770,
avenue Kent
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