In an impassioned speech before the UN General Assembly on September 27, 2024, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spelled out to the world that Israel is done with international efforts to placate or excuse Hamas and Hezbollah. He declared there would be no peace until the terrorist organizations dedicated to the mass murder of Jews and the eradication of Israel are themselves eradicated.
Netanyahu started his speech by stating he originally had zero interest in attending the UN meeting this year, but felt compelled to do so in order to combat the lies of those claiming Israel was unjustifiably aggressive in combating terror.
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 them.
Netanyahu stated to those gathered that Iran was and is a threat to not only Israel but the civilized world as a whole.
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.
Netanyahu reminded the UN that before the Hamas-committed obscene atrocities of October 7, 2023, the Middle East was close to enjoying genuine peace as it has ever been since Israel’s formation in 1948.
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 terrorists from Gaza burst into Israel in pickup trucks and on motorcycles, and they committed unimaginable atrocities. They savagely murdered 1,200 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.
Netanyahu continued, noting how Iran was behind Israel being forced into war for self-preservation on multiple fronts.
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 have fired over 8,000 rockets at our towns and cities, at our civilians, at our children. Two weeks later, the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen launched drones and missiles at Israel, the first of 250 such attacks, including one yesterday aimed at Tel Aviv. Iran’s Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq have targeted Israel dozens of times over the past year as well.
Netanyahu put Iran on notice that Israel will not be attacked without consequence.
Fueled by Iran, Palestinian terrorists in Judea and 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.
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.
Netanyahu rubbed the faces of those who claim Israel is the holdback to Middle Eastern peace in a map of economic reality.
This is the map I presented here last year. It’s a map of a blessing.
It shows 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 rail lines, energy pipelines, and fiber optic cables, and this will serve the betterment of 2 billion people.
He next displayed a map of the present reality.
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 nations from within, and inflicts misery on millions. 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, 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 has appeased Iran. It turned a blind eye to its internal repression. It turned a blind eye to its external aggression. Well, that appeasement must end. And that appeasement must end now.
Netanyahu chided those in attendance for failing to support the underground Iranian resistance.
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, but they should join Israel. They should join Israel in stopping Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Netanyahu highlighted Hezbollah’s crimes against Israel and its appropriate response.
Israel must also defeat Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah is the quintessential terror organization in the world today.
It has tentacles that span 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 has attacked Israel viciously over the last 20 years.
In the last year, completely unprovoked, a day after the 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.
Netanyahu then drew the line.
Israel has been tolerating this intolerable situation for nearly a year. Well, I’ve come here today to say enough is enough.
I said to the people of Lebanon this week: Get out of the death trap that Hezbollah has put you in. Don’t let Nasrallah 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 homes safely, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.
After again reminding those assembled of what Middle East peace could accomplish in economic growth for all, Netanyahu asked:
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 and peace? Or will you stand with Iran, a brutal dictatorship that subjugates its own people and exports terrorism across the globe?
Netanyahu dropped withering sarcasm on progressives who harp on Israel yet ignore the human rights violations of Islamist fundamentalists.
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 shot down protesters, murder women for not covering their hair, and hang gays in public squares? Some progressives.
Following a further reaming of the UN for its actions against Israel, Netanyahu concluded with:
I have a message for you: Israel will win this battle. We will win this battle because we don’t have a choice.
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:
“נֵ֣צַח יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לֹ֥א יְשַׁקֵּ֖ר”
“The eternity of Israel will not falter”.
In the Jewish people’s epic journey from antiquity, in 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.
“חִזְק֣וּ וְאִמְצ֔וּ אַל־תִּֽירְא֥וּ וְאַל־תַּעַרְצ֖וּ מִפְּנֵיהֶ֑ם כִּ֣י ה’ אֱלֹקיךָ ה֚וּא הַהֹלֵ֣ךְ עִמָּ֔ךְ לֹ֥א יַרְפְּךָ֖ וְלֹ֥א יַעַזְבֶֽךּ”
עם ישראל חי
The people of Israel live now, tomorrow, forever”.
