“Making us Siamese Twins with the Palestinians is wrong and unhelpful. They will not be a major part [of the speech]. Relations with other countries will not be defined by them,” a source close to Bennett said.
By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News
After releasing a pointed statement which appeared to contain a jab at former premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech style, sources close to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said he is planning to encourage international action against the Iran nuclear threat during his UN address on Monday.
Ratcheting up the pressure on the international community to step in and take collective action against the threat posed by Iran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program will be the primary focus of Bennett’s speech, Israeli media reported, citing a source close to the prime minister.
Other topics Bennett is expected to cover include Israel’s successes in the fields of medicine and science, highlighting its reputation as a technological innovative country.
He will position himself and his cabinet as fresh leaders who are eager to abandon Netanyahu-era tensions and unite Israeli society, a source said.
“This will be an opportunity to tell our story, about Israel’s place in the world and about the special spirit of Israelis and our contribution to the world,” a statement released by Bennett read.
But Bennett faces an even bigger challenge than convincing the international community to come to a consensus and take action on Iran’s nuclear program.
Sources within his administration said he plans to beseech the UN to look past the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The prime minister wants to promote the idea that Israel is “an important and active country in the world with a big footprint of its own, and we want to put that forward in bilateral relations.”
“For 73 years, Israel’s place in the world was all about the conflict, and that is not healthy,” the source said.
“Making us Siamese Twins with the Palestinians is wrong and unhelpful. They will not be a major part [of the speech]. Relations with other countries will not be defined by them.”
Bennett wrote most of the speech himself, though he received input from philosophers including Micah Goodman and a number of other prominent writers.
“It was important to him that the speech be in his voice and reflect what he thinks as accurately as possible,” a source said.
Before departing the Jewish State for New York on Saturday evening, Bennett told a crowd of reporters on the tarmac that he’d use his speech as a reality check for Iranians and Palestinians.
Both groups, Bennett said, must “deal with their own people and improving their lives, and stop their obsession with Israel.”
______
Tobias Siegal contributed to this report