Netanyahu demanded that the UN act on its various mandates, among them to prevent a serious Iranian threat at Israel’s northern border.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Monday with United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem.
Guterres is on a three-day visit to the Jewish State, the first since his appointment in January.
“Iran is busy turning Syria into a base of military entrenchment and it wants to use Syria and Lebanon as warfronts against its declared goal to eradicate Israel,” Netanyahu told Guterres, warning that “Iran is also building sites to produce precision-guided missiles towards that end in both Syria and in Lebanon.”
Syria reportedly enjoys a missile industry that Iran set up in the city of Aleppo. The missiles manufactured in Aleppo were said to be used by the Hezbollah terror group against Israel during the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006, and Iran’s support for the terror organization, as in the missile industry, is part of a regional strategy.
Netanyahu stressed that this reality is one that Israel cannot accept.
Furthermore, “this is something the UN should not accept,” the prime minister stated. “And I intend to speak to you at great length about this, and other tasks that I believe are important for the makings of peace and security in the world.”
Netanyahu presented Guterres with military intelligence on Iran’s threats against Israel on its northern borders.
Israel has repeatedly warned it will do what it takes to keep Iran from threatening its borders and has carried out airstrikes in Syria against suspected weapons shipments bound for Hezbollah.
Iran is believed to command of a force of up to 25,000 Shi’ite Muslim fighters in Syria.
Israel’s ‘Troubled Relationship with the UN’
As for the UN’s notorious anti-Israel bias, Netanyahu noted that Guterres has said that the “calling for the destruction of Israel is a modern form of anti-Semitism.”
“You have clearly demonstrated the desire since you have taken office to turn a new page in the relations between Israel and the UN. This is something I want too, and I look forward to working with you towards that joint mission,” Netanyahu said.
“There is no question that we’ve had a troubled relationship with the UN. I think it has an absurd obsession with Israel, flagrantly discriminatory tactics. You don’t have to be the Israeli prime minister to understand that, and I think people of good faith and common sense understand that,” Netanyahu underscored,
The prime minister expressed hope that Guterres will “have an opportunity on this visit to see Israel. It’s a robust democracy. It’s a very advanced country. It’s a country that engages in the pursuit of knowledge and the betterment of our own people, the betterment of humanity.”
In the evening, the UN chief will attend, together with Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, a special showcase of Israeli innovation at the Israel Museum.
List of UN’s Failures
Netanyahu assailed the UN for failing to act on its mandates.
“The UN is mandated to preserve world heritage, but UNESCO time and again makes a mockery of that heritage most absurdly when it denies the connection 3,000 years old of the Jewish people to our eternal capital, Jerusalem,” Netanyahu charged.
“The UN is mandated to pursue peace, but it allows Palestinian hate speech to flourish in its institutions,” he continued. “The UN is mandated to stand up for human rights, but it allows in its various forms the worst human rights violators to take up the cudgel and to accuse Israel of violating human rights.”
However, for Israel the UN’s biggest failure is with regards to Hezbollah in Syria. “The UN was mandated to prevent Hezbollah weapon shipments, but effectively it has not reported, to my knowledge, even one of the tens of thousands of weapon smugglings into Lebanon for Hezbollah, contrary to Resolution 1701,” Netanyahu said.
The Israeli leader called on the UN to restore its “moral clarity.”
“I know that this is a tremendous task. I know that the Secretary General does not have power over the members… Yet I believe that your leadership can make a difference… I believe that you can make an important difference,” Netanyahu concluded.
By: World Israel News Staff