Netanyahu’s ranting at the UN

TEHRAN, Sept. 30 (MNA) -- In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held up a cartoon-like drawing of a bomb with a fuse and literally drew a red line just below a label reading “final stage” to a nuclear bomb, which he claimed Iran will be on the brink of developing in less than a year. Netanyahu devoted almost all of his speech to what he called Iran’s “nuclear weapons program”. To demonize Iran, he also claimed that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel. But Iran does not pose an existential threat to Israel. And he also repeatedly said that the “international community” should stop Iran’s “nuclear weapons program”. But if Iran has a clandestine nuclear weapons program, why did the 120-nation Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which constitutes two-thirds of the international community, issue a statement expressing support for Iran’s peaceful nuclear program at its summit in Tehran on August 31? So where is this international community that Netanyahu and some others talk about? Netanyahu drew a distinction between medievalism and modernity and tried to portray himself as a defender of modernity and those who oppose Israeli policies as a symbol of medievalism. But Netanyahu’s ideology and political record are clear examples of medievalism, in the sense that he orders the construction of more and more houses and settlements on Palestinian lands and authorizes the forced eviction of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem, despite appeals by the United Nations, the United States, and the European Union to halt such acts. Only a person with medieval attitudes acts like this because a civilized person, however powerful his country is, does not deprive the people of another nation of their rights. Netanyahu said radical Muslims want “to end the modern world.” But he himself and other extremists in Israel, who repeatedly threaten to launch a military attack against Iran, are the real threat to world peace. Even during his speech at the UN General Assembly, which is a world forum, he beat the drums of war with Iran. According to opinion polls, the Israeli ruling coalition’s wild and insane stance toward Iran has caused fear among Israeli citizens and angered some Israeli political figures and Tel Aviv’s allies in the West, particularly in the United States. So which one is the real threat to world peace, an Iran, whose nuclear program is being supervised by the United Nations nuclear watchdog, or a ruling coalition in Israel that is beating the drums of war against Iran?