After delivering that ludicrous speech to the UN and displaying the childish cartoon of a bomb with a fuse to the world leaders in 2012, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again made himself a laughing stock by parroting nonsensical, hallucinatory words about Iran’s nuclear program and its newly-elected President Hassan Rouhani in the 68th session of the UN General Assembly.
Bibi Netanyahu described Iranian President Hassan Rouhani a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” and dedicated almost all his unfruitful and boring speech to the statements made by President Rouhani in his address to the UN General Assembly’s General Debate. One may think that the Israeli hawk had prepared nothing to say before coming to New York and was just monitoring the Iranian president’s lecture and concocting responses to it.
Netanyahu claimed that in the past three years, Iran has perpetrated or ordered terrorist attacks on five continents! Nobody was there to challenge this lunatic man and ask him to present evidence for his allegations. The irony is that since the inauspicious birth of the Israeli regime in 1948, thousands of Palestinians have been murdered by this killer state, and yet its prime minister claims that Iran is a supporter of terrorism.
According to the ICT Middleastern Conflict Statistics Project, only in the Second Intifada which started on September 28, 2000 and lasted until February 8, 2005, more than 13,000 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli forces. Israel is getting away with these crimes against humanity, but who can imagine that Iran would have been treated in the same way if it had ever murdered not 13,000, but simply 13 civilians in one of its neighboring countries in the daylight?
Again, in what the Israelis call Operation Cast Lead, that is the 2008-2009 Gaza Massacre, Israel killed 1,417 citizens of the Gaza Strip which it had invaded for many years.
These barbaric killings have raised no eyebrows in the UN and other international organizations, giving more courage and audacity to Israel to practice lawlessness and enjoy immunity to the internationally recognized regulations and conventions and projecting its own criminal actions on the others. That is what has emboldened Netanyahu to the extent that he now accuses the most pacifist nation of the region, Iran, of spreading violence and terror.
According to Netanyahu, President Rouhani had called on nations to “join his wave against violence and extremism, but the only waves Iran had generated in the last 30 years were the waves of violence and terrorism it had unleashed in the region and across the world. I wish I could believe Rouhani, but I don’t because facts are stubborn things and the facts are that Iran’s savage record flatly contradicts its President’s soothing rhetoric.”
However, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif whose first appearance in the UN as Iran’s top diplomat – he had previously served as Iran’s permanent representative to the UN for several years – was a brilliant and dazzling performance described Netanyahu’s position in the world with the best words: “Netanyahu is the most isolated individual in the United Nations.”
Zarif who has met more than 30 foreign ministers from the five continents on the sidelines of the General Assembly smartly revealed the futility and uselessness of Netanyahu’s remarks and underlined the fact that Israel is now more isolated than ever as Iran is approaching the world powers, rebuilding its foreign relations and improving its international stature; something which causes hysteria and turmoil in Israel’s political establishment that is predicated on fear-mongering, warmongering and causing troubles to others.
It’s an irrefutable reality that Israel’s survival is hinged on an imaginary threat that can buy Tel Aviv sympathy and commiseration. This is what Israel has helped Israel through more than six decades to assure its survival. Now that the conciliatory tone of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has convinced the world that Iran poses no threat to any nation and that it does not intend to produce nuclear weapons, Israel is feeling that it’s being left with no such an existential threat which can produce an artificial and fake security for it.
FM Zarif wisely pointed out that through the past 22 years, Israel has been constantly warning that Iran would be producing a nuclear weapon within six months, but that six-month deadline has never arrived and this clearly attests to the Israeli panic about a misperceived Iranian threat Israel has always bragged about.
An Israeli expert once revealed this hidden truth to Trita Parsi: “you have to recognize that we Israelis need an existential threat. It is part of the way we view the world. If we can find more than one, that would be preferable, but we will settle for one.”
The improvement of Iran’s relations with the world countries, and in particular with the United States is something which ruffles Israel’s feathers. Israel benefits from the continuation of hostility between Iran and the U.S., and now that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has taken up détente and reconciliation with the West and the United States, Israel finds itself a loser of this bargain.
Even Jonathan Marcus, the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent has acknowledged that Iran-U.S. rapprochement will challenge Israel and its regional hegemony. Alluding to the momentous phone conversation between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his American counterpart Barack Obama which has caused a wave of euphoria and enthusiasm in the world, Marcus noted that the success of Iran’s charm offensive at the UN has caught Israel unawares and angered Bibi Netanyahu.
Netanyahu’s comments that Iran’s overtures to the West are not reliable and genuine seem to have few supporters, even among the American officials who think it’s more logical and reasonable to give diplomacy with Iran time to work.
According to Wendy R. Sherman, the U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and chief nuclear negotiator in the previous talks with Iran, the Congress should give the administration more time to pursue the diplomatic track with the Islamic Republic before further decisions on sanctions are made. Sherman who is very close to the Israeli government, tried to appease her friends in Tel Aviv by telling the Congress that Israel’s security remains a “paramount concern” for the United States, but she couldn’t hide her willingness for testing diplomacy with Iran, something which Israel strongly disfavors.
More importantly, the Secretary of State John Kerry himself believes that depriving Washington and Tehran and the whole international community of the chance of finding a peaceful solution to Iran’s nuclear standoff is a “malpractice.” In a meeting with his Japanese counterpart in Tokyo, John Kerry said it would be a “diplomatic malpractice of the worst order” not to test Iran’s willingness to comply with international demands over its nuclear program.
Albeit these remarks by the American officials are made in the wake of aggressive pressures by Israel and the Zionist lobby in the United States that are pulling out all the stops to prevent an agreement between Iran and the world powers to bring the nuclear stalemate at the end, so it’s not surprising that an essence of conservatism and self-restraint can be found in their statements. The American and European media have greater freedoms in expressing their excitement at the Iran-U.S. rapprochement and the possibility of a nuclear deal between them which Iranian president has predicted can be achieved in 6 to 12 months.
In the recent days, American news agencies, newspapers, TV and radio stations have widely given coverage to President Rouhani’s speech to the UN and described it with such adjectives as “unprecedented”, “promising”, “peaceful” and “logical.” They talked of the Rouhani-Zarif axis and their “charm offensive” at the UN which was indubitably successful. On the contrary, they censured Netanyahu for his bizarre and peculiar speech which was devoid of any traces of reason and rationality.
It’s not strange that Netanyahu is indescribably angry and lonesome these days. Israel’s long-term interests lie in sabotaging international peace and order. Now that this peace and order is going to reemerge from Tehran and Washington, it’s quite understandable that Netanyahu and his Likudnik friends are running mad.
