The perfect metaphor to characterize the UN General Assembly delegates who walked out before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke is this: “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” You can’t make people understand the truth if they choose to ignore it.
The problem with the Middle East is that both sides have their own “truth,” which is contradictory because the only alternative to truth is falsehood.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, as he has done in previous UN appearances, laid out the truth which dozens of delegates didn’t want to hear. “Moral Cowards,” Netanyahu called them as he invited others who fit his description to follow them out the door.
Netanyahu then proceeded to detail what he sees as objectively true.
About denying Iran the ability to create a nuclear weapon, Netanyahu said it was “the easiest decision” he has ever made. If he and the U.S. had not done so, he said, “we’d all be dead.” Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian, ludicrously told Bret Baier of Fox News that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon and never intended to.
Netanyahu continued: “In defending itself, Israel is also defending many of the countries whose delegates just left this hall! In fact, I want you to know that many of their leaders even thank us privately for taking out Iran’s nukes. It’s hard to imagine more mind-blowing hypocrisy, but that’s exactly what it is.”
Hypocrisy appears to be the main diet for many at the UN.
It is good to repeat the history of Israel which, the prime minister noted, extends back to the days of Moses as well as contradict the lies about the country practicing colonialism. In denying Israel is practicing colonialism, he singled out Great Britain and France which were once colonial empires and are now among Israel’s critics.
Netanyahu then got to the heart of the lies perpetrated against the only democracy in the region. Speaking of what Israel looked like before the 1967 war, he said “…at the time, on this tiny patch of Earth, no West Bank, no Gaza, no Golan Heights, just the very survival of this one and only Jewish state, because this is what this conflict is about. It’s not about territories; it’s about a Jewish state at any boundaries. And yet, at the time, we were threatened with annihilation by three Arab armies that were about to invade us.”
Those Arab armies may no longer be attacking or planning to attack Israel, but some of their religious and political twins are. They have gone by different names – the PLO, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas, Hezbollah – but all have the same goal: the elimination of Israel and death to the Jews and America. They have said so and have never revoked their charters which openly speak of that goal.
Those anti-Israel “free Palestine” demonstrators with their nicely printed T-shirts and signs outside the UN were as deliberately blind as the delegates who walked out. No “journalist” I saw asked who those people were, if they were paid, and who gave them the T-shirts and signs. They also didn’t ask if they have jobs (other than demonstrating), or any other relevant question.
There was much more in Netanyahu’s speech that deserves reading or watching if you missed it. Countering propaganda is sometimes difficult, but Netanyahu does it better than almost anyone else. It is among many reasons he deserves another term in next month’s Israeli elections.
To add to the metaphor which began this column, there is this about people who plug their ears and cover their eyes to ignore information that counters the lies they choose to believe. It’s “the blind leading the blind.” Should anyone need clarification, it describes a scenario where an unqualified, ignorant, or clueless person tries to guide others who are equally ill-informed.”
Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book “A Watchman in the Night: What I’ve Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America” (HumanixBooks).