#Israel / The Speech of Lies at the UN: The Truth is There's No Greater Lie Than Netanyahu's "Truth" (Amos Schocken)

The international media's decades-long failure to report honestly on #Israel has real, devastating consequences for Palestinians. Shocken cuts through the bullshit and lays out some hard truths about Israel that anyone who's paying attention should have known by now.

[...] At the beginning of Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the UN last Friday, he said he hadn't intended to come speak because his country is at war, but ultimately decided to come to refute the lies told about #Israel in speeches by other leaders before him. According to him, he decided to come and tell the truth. And the truth is that Israel pursues peace, it aspires to peace, it has made peace and will continue to make peace, but it faces cruel enemies who seek to destroy it.

[...] The truth is that there is no greater lie than this "truth" of Netanyahu's. #Netanyahu never wanted peace with the Palestinians. In 1995, he incited against Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin who signed the Oslo Accords, as a first step towards realizing the two-state solution - the only solution that can bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians. In his first term, after #Rabin's assassination, from 1996-1999, Netanyahu only did what Israel had committed to before he was elected and signed the Wye Agreement in October 1998, but the agreement was not implemented due to claims from both sides. In 2009 he was elected for a second time, and served continuously for 12 years until 2021. During this period, he succeeded in torpedoing US President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry's attempt to establish peace between Israel and the Palestinians. He never initiated negotiations with the Palestinian Authority on the future of the occupation in the territories. To avoid any negotiations with the Authority, he humiliated it and strengthened Hamas - so he could say that the Palestinian Authority does not represent all Palestinians.

[...] Netanyahu is not interested in peace with the Palestinians, because he is not willing to give up on Israeli settlement in the occupied territories. The basic guidelines of his current government state that the exclusive right to settle in all parts of the Land of Israel, including the occupied territories, belongs only to the Jewish people, and the map he presented in his UN speech is from the river to the sea, as the extremists on both sides desire. Mahmoud Abbas says that the Palestinian state he wants to establish should include the territories in the West Bank occupied in June 1967, and the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu refuses to hear of this, despite the fact that without agreement on this there will be no peace with the Palestinians. According to Netanyahu, Palestinians are not allowed to want to establish a state even in a smaller area than that marked in the UN partition plan for two states from November 1947. It should be emphasized that Israel violated its commitment in the peace agreement with Egypt, and it violates international law when it allows its citizens to live in occupied territory and allows Palestinians, for whom this territory is intended, to be removed from the occupied territory.

[...] There were more lies in Netanyahu's speech. According to him, there are two possibilities: One is a blessing of peace and prosperity for Israel, its Arab neighbors and the rest of the world, in which he specifically referred to cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia; the other is a curse, in which Iran and its agents in various countries will cause massacre, bloodshed and destruction. Netanyahu conceals the fact that Saudi Arabia conditions its cooperation with Israel, the blessing of peace, on advancing a solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians by establishing a Palestinian state. Netanyahu deceives his listeners by saying he prefers the blessed solution, because in practice he prevents it, as he intends to continue the cruel #apartheid regime in the territories and Israel's denial of Palestinian rights. It is shocking that this will be the legacy of his tenure, apartheid and terror.

[...] Another lie by Netanyahu is in saying that we are constantly focused on the sacred mission of freeing the hostages held in Gaza, and that we will not stop until we bring them all back. The truth is the opposite. Netanyahu is not willing to do what is necessary to bring back the hostages, and he has prevented Israeli negotiators from reaching an agreement several times, because each time he defined additional Israeli demands that the representatives were willing to give up on. At least let him tell the truth here and not lie.

[...] Netanyahu asked the UN Security Council in his speech to renew sanctions on Iran to prevent it from reaching nuclear capability, but he ignored Security Council Resolution 2334 from 2016, which determined that it is forbidden to add settlers to the occupied territories, even as a result of natural growth, and that all settlements that went up in the territory since March 2001 should be dismantled, and that the fact that Israeli citizens live in the occupied territories including East Jerusalem is contrary to international law and the Security Council decision, and is a major obstacle to the two-state solution and long-term peace. Sanctions should be imposed on Netanyahu and ministers in his government who promote settlement in the occupied territories, and on the Israeli citizens who live there.

[...] Netanyahu lies when he accuses Abbas of not condemning the massacre carried out by Hamas on October 7. Abbas said it is the Palestinians' right to defend themselves, and condemned harm to civilians by both sides. He lies when he claims that Abbas is waging a diplomatic war against Israel's right to exist. Abbas recognizes Israel's right to exist. He is waging a diplomatic war against the occupation and apartheid. This is his right, and he should not be punished for it.

[...] When Netanyahu noted in his speech that the justice system in Israel is independent and should receive from the #ICC prosecutor the same treatment as other democracies receive, he is lying to his listeners, because he conceals from them the fact that in these very days he is leading a move aimed at destroying the independence of the Israeli justice system.

Hebrew https://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/2024-10-01/ty-article-opinion/.premium/00000192-4767-d2cc-a5d7-e7ff9e620000 or https://archive.ph/YQ0OY

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