UN General Debate | Netanyahu's story time

Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, speaks at the United Nations Headquarters during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly. Photo: dpa/AP/Seth Wenig It was the purest fairy tale hour that Israel's head of government held in front of the UN General Assembly. Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to the UN General Assembly resembled a plea for supposedly just wars and brutal power politics in the Middle East, which does not stop at massive destruction of infrastructure and human lives. The man who led his country into five ongoing wars - Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iran - took 40 minutes to explain why he was on the right side of history.

A constant in his argument was the narrative of saving Israel, indeed humanity, from terrorism and Iranian nuclear weapons, thanks to the wars he started. No superlative was too big for him. During his speech, he was also not above showing a pager with a smug smile, which was intended to commemorate the devices prepared by the Israeli secret service that exploded in the hands of suspected Hezbollah fighters - unfortunately there were also children among them.

His polemical, sometimes hateful accusations against other heads of state and government, his quick dismissal of all objections to his policy of permanent war, which is having a lasting negative impact on Israeli society, show above all that Netanyahu addressed his speech primarily to the Israeli electorate: a new parliament will be elected on October 27th and the chances for the current right-wing extremist government coalition are not good.

The deliberate lies of Netanyahu and his government have become firmly established in Israeli politics, but are easy to expose: the statement that the war in the Gaza Strip amounts to genocide was not made by some crazy Israel-hater, but by scientists who investigate genocides and the renowned human rights organization Amnesty International; Even the International Court of Justice in The Hague recognizes signs of this. It has often been analyzed that the violence against Palestinians in the West Bank is of a systemic nature and is not the result of hot-headed young people with extreme views and too much testosterone. The violence serves to drive Palestinians from their settlement areas and is part of the official Israeli policy of slowly pushing back and negating Palestinian life.

The fact that a suspected war criminal wanted with an international arrest warrant is allowed to speak freely before the most global of all global forums, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (as well as representatives of other states) was not even given a visa to enter the USA, is scandal enough in itself and shows, not for the first time, what a mistake it was to locate the UN headquarters in New York instead of in neutral Switzerland.

Pro-Palestinian protesters block First Avenue near the United Nations headquarters in New York, shortly before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to the 81st UN General Assembly. Photo: AFP/Charly Triballeau

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