Israel
– Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, Prime Minister of Israel, said that after hearing numerous lies and slander, he decided to come personally “to set the record straight” and “to speak for the truth”. As his country faces “savage enemies who seek our annihilation”, he stressed that “Israel seeks peace, Israel yearns for peace.” Comparing the “unimaginable” atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October to “the Nazi Holocaust”, he said: “They savagely murdered 1,200 people, they raped and mutilated women, they beheaded men, they burnt babies alive.” Israel has brought home 154 of 251 people taken hostage by Hamas and dragged into the “dungeons” of Gaza, he said, adding: “We will not rest until the remaining hostages are brought home safely.”
Following the 7 October attack, Israel has been forced to defend itself on six more war fronts organized by Iran in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, he noted. In response to Iran’s first-ever direct assault on Israel, he warned: “Strike us, we will strike you. There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach and that is true of the entire Middle East.” Demonstrating two maps, he contrasted the “blessing” of development for Israel and its “Arab partners” with the “curse” of Iran’s influence in the region, warning that “Iran seeks to impose its radicalism beyond the Middle East and threatens the entire world.” The world should “join Israel in stopping Iran’s nuclear weapons”, he said, calling on the UN to “snap back” sanctions against Iran. “We must all do everything in our power to ensure Iran never gets nuclear weapons,” he emphasized.
Noting that the Israel Defense Forces continue fighting Hamas, he warned that if the group stays in power, “it will regroup, rearm and attack again.” Therefore, he rejected “any rule for Hamas in a post-war Gaza”, adding that it would be “inconceivable” if the defeated Nazis were invited to rebuild Germany in 1945. “We do not seek to resettle Gaza,” he underscored, emphasizing that Israel wants a “demilitarized and de-radicalized” Gaza, adding that “only then can we ensure that this round of fighting will be the last.”
More so, he stressed that the war can come to an end only if Hamas surrenders and releases all hostages. “If they do not, we will fight until we achieve total victory. There is not a substitute for it,” he underscored. He further stressed that Israel must defeat “the quintessential terror organization” Hizbullah in Lebanon, and “will not accept a terror army perched on our northern border ready to carry out another 7 October style massacre.”
Recalling the Abraham Accords of four years ago, he said that the path towards achieving a historic peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia must continue as it would build a foundation for a broader global alliance of countries, that choose “the blessing of peace”. Looking forward, he asked the audience to make a choice of standing with Israel, democracy, and peace or with the brutal dictatorship of Iran. “We are defending ourselves, but we are also defending you against a common enemy that, through violence and terror, seeks to destroy our way of life,” he said. Voicing indignation about Israel being “absurdly accused” of committing genocide by the International Court of Justice, he criticized “the UN house of darkness” for passing more resolutions against Israel than resolutions against the entire world combined. “What a hypocrisy. What a double standard. What a joke,” he said, adding that “until this anti-Semitic swamp is drained”, the UN will be viewed “as nothing more than a contemptuous farce.” The real war criminals are in Iran, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, he said, stressing that his country will “win this battle because we do not have a choice.”
Source: UN press release GA/12638
[ Full speech ]
Palestine
– Mahmoud Abbas, President
MAHMOUD ABBAS, President of the State of Palestine, said that his people, for almost a year now, have been “subjected to one of the most heinous crimes of our era”. Israel is carrying out a full-scale war of genocide, a crime that so far has killed more than “40,000 martyrs in Gaza alone, and thousands remain under the rubble”, he added. Hundreds of Palestinian families have been annihilated. Thousands have died because of the spread of disease and shortages in medicine and water. More than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza have left their homes multiple times in search of safety. Dozens of people are being killed every day. The West Bank is under daily Israeli aggression, he went on to say. “They are building everywhere in Palestine as if all of Palestine is theirs,” he stressed. The Aqsa Mosque and its surroundings are the exclusive property of Muslims, and yet Israel is trying to erase that fact. Turning to what happened on 7 October, he recalled that he immediately stressed the need to stop war. “I condemned the killing of civilians, regardless of who they are, and regardless of what side they were on,” he said. There is no need to detain women, children, and the elderly. But instead of “hearing the voice of reason”, the Israeli Government took advantage of what happened to launch an all-out war.
Israel today is launching a new aggression against the Lebanese people, who are now being subjected to a war of genocide, he said, condemning the aggression, and demanding that it stops immediately. Israel has reoccupied the Gaza Strip in its entirety. “Seventy-five percent of everything in Gaza has been fully destroyed,” he added. The international community must immediately impose sanctions on Israel. “The massacres, the crimes, the genocide that Israel has been perpetrating against our people since its inception in 1948 to this very day will not go unpunished; there is no statute of limitations,” he stressed. But despite repeated calls, the world has not succeeded in obliging Israel to stop this war of genocide and its war crimes against innocent civilians.
The United States has obstructed draft resolutions three times at the Security Council demanding Israel to observe a ceasefire, he went on to say. “The US alone stood and said: ‘No, the fighting is going to continue’,” he added. It furnished Israel with the deadly weapons that it used to kill thousands of innocent civilians, including children and women. This is the United States, the very country that was the only member of the Security Council that voted against granting the State of Palestine full membership in the United Nations. “We don't deserve membership in the eyes of America,” he said. Israel does not deserve to be a member of this international organization, he went on to say. He commended the General Assembly for adopting a resolution that called on Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories within 12 months. He paid tribute to Turkish-American Aisha Noor, “killed by the occupation army in cold blood”.
He called for a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the military aggressions and attacks by terrorist settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, he said. Humanitarian aid must be delivered throughout Gaza while Israel fully withdraws from the enclave. “We will not allow a single centimeter of Gaza to be taken,” he warned, demanding the return of all those who have been displaced. He also underscored the need to protect the work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and other humanitarian organizations. “We cannot fight Israel, and we don’t want to fight, but we want protection,” he said. The Palestinian people must have authority over all Palestinian territories in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Eastern Jerusalem, as has been stipulated by international law. “We want a solution that will protect both countries, the State of Palestine and the State of Israel, so that they can coexist in peace, stability, and security,” he said.
Source: UN press release GA/12635
Note: Full speech in text form is available only in Arabic. However, you may listen to it in English by searching under "Audio" here ↓
https://gadebate.un.org/en/79/palestine-state