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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood at the podium of the United Nations General Assembly hall and absolutely tore into all of the multiplying progenitors of antisemitism around the world. He jumped right in by calling out UN members that walked out ahead of his speech. “Before I begin, just a quick announcement. If there are any other moral cowards who haven’t yet left this hall, please do so now.”
By the way, a lot of moral cowards left, but a lot of people with moral backbones stayed and applauded Mr. Netanyahu on any number of occasions. Just as surprisingly, there were a lot of applause lines for President Trump the day before.
It was a remarkable speech. He regards himself as the leader of world Jewry, and no one can deny him that platform. He has basically governed Israel for nearly 30 years. Through thick and thin. Through the wars and the massacres. And the labyrinths of domestic politics. Including his moving Israel into free-market prosperity, despite the constant attacks their people have suffered.
I first met him about 30 years ago when he was finance minister, running for prime minister, and asked a number of us to help him develop free market policies. In a sense, though, all that is beside the point. Today, he stood up in the UN and blasted antisemitism. And he consistently praised Mr. Trump as his trusted partner.
As he put it: “In this battle against the barbarians. We’ve had no greater partner than President Trump. I thank him. I thank him for his bold leadership. He boldly confronted an enormous danger to America, Israel and the world. Decades ago, he understood that if left unchallenged, the fanatic ayatollahs who chant Death to America, death to Israel would eventually carry out their mad fantasies. So Israel and America acted together not only to protect ourselves, but to save civilization.”
Having praised his friend Mr. Trump, he then proceeded to skewer his main enemy today, Mayor Zohran Mamdani. I don’t even want to paraphrase, so here’s the main quote: “So to all those spreading these lies about my country and about our brave soldiers, whether they sit in this hall or in the office of the anti-Semitic mayor of New York, I say this. Shame on you. Shame on you for distorting the facts. Shame on you for inverting victim and aggressor. Shame on you for spitting in the face of truth, Mr. Mamdani. Since you were elected mayor of this city, many Jews no longer feel safe in New York. They talk to me. They tell me this isn’t the city we remember. It changed so quickly. Now it’s no wonder you praise criminals convicted of supporting Hamas. You count as friends people like Hassan Piker, who said America deserved 9/11.”
Yet he wasn’t finished: “You falsely, repeatedly accuse Israel of genocide. Mr. Mamdani, you try to stop me from coming here,” and “you tried to silence me. Well, you can’t silence me. You can’t silence the truth. And here’s the simple truth. It was a simple truth. Israel didn’t commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide”
Yet it’s not only Mamdani at New York, antisemitism is spreading around the world. And Mr. Netanyahu spared no one. The premier asserted: “In New York, Jews are threatened on the way to synagogue. Jews have been stabbed in the streets. Jews are demonized. Targeted. They’re targeted simply for being Jews. Jews have been murdered in Sydney, Manchester, Montreal. Boulder, Colorado. They’ve been attacked in Los Angeles, London, Paris, Berlin, Washington, DC.”
Then he turned to his principal protagonist over the years, Iran, which has financed the war against Israel from Hamas and Hezbollah, and virtually every terrorist organization. Saying going to war was one of the easiest decisions he ever made as prime minister. He has dedicated his premiership down through the years, not only to stopping the arc of Iranian terrorism, but to prevent a murderous dictatorship from developing nuclear weapons.
Right here, let me say that he and Mr. Trump are succeeding in stopping nuclear weapons. Which brings me to Mr. Netanyahu’s vision pivot, where he said that “it’s only a matter of time that in Iran, something incredible will happen. The power of the people will overcome the people in power. I want you to listen to my words carefully one day, and it may not be far away. The Iranian people will be free. Their murderous regime will be toppled by its lies, by its corruption, by its cruelty. This evil regime will fall. And we will all celebrate that day.”
This is a wondrously positive vision, adjacent to Mr. Netanyahu’s earlier rallying cry, that “We will continue to win because we have no other choice.” It parallels Mr. Trump’s positive vision for humanity, that he said to great applause on Tuesday.
There was much more to the prime minister’s brilliant speech, about the Iranian tyrants who butchered and maimed tens of thousands of their own people, and the Biblical reference that Jews have been in the Golan heights since the days of Moses. The hideous barbaric Hamas slaughter of 1,200 Israelis and others, and the heroism that Israel recovered all of the hostages, both dead and alive. This is a speech everyone should read.
Finally, right outside my apartment building, there are hundreds of protesters, because I live in the same neighborhood where Mr. Netanyahu and his team stay. I don’t exactly welcome these protestors, but in a sense I do, because this is a free country and we believe in freedom of speech and freedom of religion. We are different than Iran, or Hamas, or Hezbollah, or the whole axis of terrorism, that regrettably still exists.
As I always do, though, I thank the cops for their service and protection. And then I thank Benjamin Netanyahu for his bravery.
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