Bibi's Crazy UN Speech Medievalist poses as champion of u201Cmodernityu201D

by Justin Raimondo

Recently by Justin Raimondo: In Defense of the President

It's no wonder the Israeli Foreign Ministry initially held back from releasing a transcript of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to the UN General Assembly: Bibi's wackiness doesn't bear close scrutiny. Perhaps u201Cwackyu201D isn't quite the right word for his 40-minute peroration, during which he pulled out a bomb u201Cdiagramu201D and a red marker to illustrate where he would draw a u201Cred lineu201D defining the outer limits of Iran's nuclear program. Cartoonish is more like it. The cartoonish quality of the bomb drawing underscored the content and tone of the speech, which was the jeremiad of a radical ideologue rather than anything one would expect from a statesman:

u201CToday a great battle is being waged between the modern and the medieval. Israel stands proudly with the forces of modernity. We protect the right of all our citizens, men and women, Jews and Arabs, Muslims and Christians, all are equal before the law.u201D

Israel, which privileges its priestly caste, has a state religion, and bases its national mythology on a u201Cpromiseu201D from G-d, is as medieval as any of its neighbors. Aside from being a lie, however, this statement is interesting because it evokes the very same supremacist spirit that animates the controversial pro-Israel public relations campaign launched by the Jewish state's extremist American supporters. Posters in the public transport system, from New York to San Francisco, proclaim:

u201CIn any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad.u201D

No wonder the Israeli consulates in New York and San Francisco won't disavow those vile subway posters: Pamela Geller is the new public face of Israel.

Yes, Israel protects the rights of all citizens – unless they're Palestinians who happen to own property coveted by the u201Csettlers,u201D in which case it doesn't. And the key word here is citizens: of course, the Palestinians in the occupied territories are not citizens, but helots, with no rights, and no protection from fanatical Jewish fundamentalists who have launched hundreds of attacks on their homes, and sought to displace them at every opportunity, with the active complicity of the Israeli government.

This idea that Israel represents u201Cmodernityu201D is rich, considering that every day Israeli society is sinking lower into the morass of religious and cultural fundamentalism, a regression that has not gone unnoticed in the West. Bibi opened his speech with biblical references, describing Jersusalem as the u201Ceternal capitalu201D of Israel and declaring that u201Cthe Jewish state will live forever.u201D Yet as we secularists know, nothing lives u201Cforever,u201D and the idea of a city being the u201Ceternalu201D capital of anything is a metaphor, at best, at worst a dangerous delusion. If this is the u201Cmodernu201D then one wonders how much it differs from the u201Cmedieval.u201D But let's not linger too long over the obvious. Bibi rants on:

u201CMilitant Islam has many branches, from the rulers of Iran with their revolutionary guards to al-Qaeda… but they’re all rooted in the same soil. It’s not whether this fanaticism will be defeated, but how many lives will be lost before it’s defeated. Nothing could emperil my country more than arming Iran with nuclear weapons. To imagine what the world would be like with a nuclear Iran, imagine what the world would be like with a nuclear al-Qaeda. There’s no difference.u201D

The Israeli Prime Minister may have been addressing the UN General Assembly, but he was really talking to the Americans, whose fear and loathing of the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks can always be counted on to raise them to new levels of hysteria. Outside that context, however, equating the Iranians with Al Qaeda makes about as much sense as likening the late unlamented Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden – and, hey wait, didn't we hear that equation made endlessly in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq? Yet this was not a time for subtlety from the Israeli Prime Minister – the cartoon u201Cbombu201D ended all hope of that – but for the crudest sort of propaganda, which is, of course, war propaganda.

Imagine if Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who addressed the UN that day minutes before Netanyahu took the stage, had said: u201CMilitant Judaism has many branches, from the Washington offices of AIPAC to the center of Jewish power in Tel Aviv – but they're all rooted in the same soilu201D of intolerance? Picture him conjuring images of violent Jewish u201Cfanaticismu201D – not a hard task, given what is happening in Israel today. If he had done so, Abbas would have been denounced in every Western capital as the 21st century incarnation of Hitler.

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