>
> With some modifications this is the type of speech ( most of it holding
good in our context) our PM could have or should have given to the
"eternally unhappy, much pampered Azadi seeking (yet not knowing/ specifying
"AZADI" from whom and what?) "stone pelting" so-called "misguided" Kashmiri
youth!
> The much publicized 8 point programme of the Central Government
should have included the resettlement of "Kashmiri Pandits" too as part of
this programme--exactly like the Israeli PM has done!
> If mere stone pelting against security forces, perceived
"discrimination" against Kashmiri youth and death of some 60 odd youths can
result in such violence forcing the Central Govt to react favorably to their
cause, by this weird logic, how much violence should the Kashmiri Pandits
resort to, for having been forced out of their homes, deprived of their
land, and forced to exist as refugees in their own land for two decades,
with a little more than lip-service being done to rehabilitate them by the
Kashmiri Muslim leadership? Remember, it denied even a small plot of land in
the valley for temporary use of Hindu pilgrims for their use during the
Amarnath pilgrimage but have no qualms in getting more than 4500 crores of
the same(mainly) Hindu tax payers money for HAJ {According to INDIA TODAY,
29 Sep 2008 edition(Page-18} the subsidy is Rs 4500 Crores. “}
> What is the message being sent out? That only violence gets a
response from this Govt for grievances? Dangerous trend !!
> - Hide quoted text -
>>
>>
>>
http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2009/09/24/1008134/netanyahus-un-general-assembly-speech
>>
>> Here's the full transcript of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech
at the UN General Assembly Thursday, in which he responded to Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial by holding up documentary
evidence, blasted the Goldstone Report and urged the international community
to stop Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons:
>>
>> Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,
>>
>> Nearly 62 years ago, the United Nations recognized the right of the Jews,
an ancient people 3,500 years-old, to a state of their own in their
ancestral homeland.
>>
>> I stand here today as the Prime Minister of Israel, the Jewish state, and
I speak to you on behalf of my country and my people.
>>
>> The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the
horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of
such horrendous events.
>>
>> Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic
assault on the truth. Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very
podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he
again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie.
>>
>> Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee.
There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met
and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people. The detailed minutes of
that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments. Here is a
copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how
to carry out the extermination of the Jews. Is this a lie?
>>
>> A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original
construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Those
plans are signed by Hitler’s deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself. Here is a
copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were
murdered. Is this too a lie?
>>
>> This June, President Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp. Did
President Obama pay tribute to a lie?
>>
>> And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed
numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie? One-third of
all Jews perished in the conflagration. Nearly every Jewish family was
affected, including my own. My wife's grandparents, her father’s two sisters
and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered
by the Nazis. Is that also a lie?
>>
>> Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium.
To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in
protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor
to your countries.
>>
>> But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of
my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no
shame? Have you no decency?
>>
>> A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who
denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe
out the Jewish state.
>>
>> What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!
Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only
the Jews. You're wrong.
>>
>> History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the
Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others.
>>
>> This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst
onto the world scene three decades ago after lying dormant for centuries. In
the past thirty years, this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous
violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has
callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many
others. Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this
unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times.
>>
>> Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women,
minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally
subjugated. The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against
faith nor civilization against civilization.
>>
>> It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th
century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death.
>>
>> The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress
of the 21st century. The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the
reach of communications should surely win the day. Ultimately, the past
cannot triumph over the future. And the future offers all nations
magnificent bounties of hope. The pace of progress is growing exponentially.
>>
>> It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone,
decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few
years to get from the personal computer to the internet.
>>
>> What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can
scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come. We will crack the genetic
code. We will cure the incurable. We will lengthen our lives. We will find a
cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet.
>>
>> I am proud that my country Israel is at the forefront of these advances –
by leading innovations in science and technology, medicine and biology,
agriculture and water, energy and the environment. These innovations the
world over offer humanity a sunlit future of unimagined promise.
>>
>> But if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons,
the march of history could be reversed for a time. And like the belated
victory over the Nazis, the forces of progress and freedom will prevail only
after an horrific toll of blood and fortune has been exacted from mankind.
That is why the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage
between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction.
>>
>> The most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of
Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Are the member states of the United
Nations up to that challenge? Will the international community confront a
despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for
freedom?
>>
>> Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad
daylight and gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the streets choking
in their own blood? Will the international community thwart the world's most
pernicious sponsors and practitioners of terrorism?
>>
>> Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of
Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the
entire world?
>>
>> The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime. People of
goodwill around the world stand with them, as do the thousands who have been
protesting outside this hall. Will the United Nations stand by their side?
>>
>> Ladies and Gentlemen,
>>
>> The jury is still out on the United Nations, and recent signs are not
encouraging. Rather than condemning the terrorists and their Iranian
patrons, some here have condemned their victims. That is exactly what a
recent UN report on Gaza did, falsely equating the terrorists with those
they targeted.
>>
>> For eight long years, Hamas fired from Gaza thousands of missiles,
mortars and rockets on nearby Israeli cities. Year after year, as these
missiles were deliberately hurled at our civilians, not a single UN
resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks. We heard nothing –
absolutely nothing – from the UN Human Rights Council, a misnamed
institution if there ever was one.
>>
>> In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every
inch of Gaza. It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis.
We didn't get peace. Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty
miles from Tel Aviv. Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a
nightmare. You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they
increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent.
>>
>> Finally, after eight years of this unremitting assault, Israel was
finally forced to respond. But how should we have responded? Well, there is
only one example in history of thousands of rockets being fired on a
country's civilian population. It happened when the Nazis rocketed British
cities during World War II. During that war, the allies leveled German
cities, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties. Israel chose to respond
differently. Faced with an enemy committing a double war crime of firing on
civilians while hiding behind civilians – Israel sought to conduct surgical
strikes against the rocket launchers.
>>
>> That was no easy task because the terrorists were firing missiles from
homes and schools, using mosques as weapons depots and ferreting explosives
in ambulances. Israel, by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging
Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas.
>> We dropped countless flyers over their homes, sent thousands of text
messages and called thousands of cell phones asking people to leave. Never
has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy's
civilian population from harm's way.
>>
>> Yet faced with such a clear case of aggressor and victim, who did the UN
Human Rights Council decide to condemn? Israel. A democracy legitimately
defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and
given an unfair trial to boot.
>>
>> By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would have
dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war criminals. What a
perversion of truth. What a perversion of justice.
>>
>> Delegates of the United Nations,
>>
>> Will you accept this farce?
>>
>> Because if you do, the United Nations would revert to its darkest days,
when the worst violators of human rights sat in judgment against the
law-abiding democracies, when Zionism was equated with racism and when an
automatic majority could declare that the earth is flat.
>>
>> If this body does not reject this report, it would send a message to
terrorists everywhere: Terror pays; if you launch your attacks from densely
populated areas, you will win immunity. And in condemning Israel, this body
would also deal a mortal blow to peace. Here's why.
>>
>> When Israel left Gaza, many hoped that the missile attacks would stop.
Others believed that at the very least, Israel would have international
legitimacy to exercise its right of self-defense. What legitimacy? What
self-defense?
>>
>> The same UN that cheered Israel as it left Gaza and promised to back our
right of self-defense now accuses us –my people, my country - of war crimes?
And for what? For acting responsibly in self-defense. What a travesty!
>>
>> Israel justly defended itself against terror. This biased and unjust
report is a clear-cut test for all governments. Will you stand with Israel
or will you stand with the terrorists?
>>
>> We must know the answer to that question now. Now and not later. Because
if Israel is again asked to take more risks for peace, we must know today
that you will stand with us tomorrow. Only if we have the confidence that we
can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace.
>>
>> Ladies and Gentlemen,
>>
>> All of Israel wants peace.
>>
>> Any time an Arab leader genuinely wanted peace with us, we made peace. We
made peace with Egypt led by Anwar Sadat. We made peace with Jordan led by
King Hussein. And if the Palestinians truly want peace, I and my government,
and the people of Israel, will make peace. But we want a genuine peace, a
defensible peace, a permanent peace. In 1947, this body voted to establish
two states for two peoples – a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews
accepted that resolution. The Arabs rejected it.
>>
>> We ask the Palestinians to finally do what they have refused to do for 62
years: Say yes to a Jewish state. Just as we are asked to recognize a
nation-state for the Palestinian people, the Palestinians must be asked to
recognize the nation state of the Jewish people. The Jewish people are not
foreign conquerors in the Land of Israel. This is the land of our
forefathers.
>>
>> Inscribed on the walls outside this building is the great Biblical vision
of peace: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. They shall learn
war no more." These words were spoken by the Jewish prophet Isaiah 2,800
years ago as he walked in my country, in my city, in the hills of Judea and
in the streets of Jerusalem.
>>
>> We are not strangers to this land. It is our homeland. As deeply
connected as we are to this land, we recognize that the Palestinians also
live there and want a home of their own. We want to live side by side with
them, two free peoples living in peace, prosperity and dignity.
>>
>> But we must have security. The Palestinians should have all the powers to
govern themselves except those handful of powers that could endanger Israel.
>>
>> That is why a Palestinian state must be effectively demilitarized. We
don't want another Gaza, another Iranian backed terror base abutting
Jerusalem and perched on the hills a few kilometers from Tel Aviv.
>>
>> We want peace.
>>
>> I believe such a peace can be achieved. But only if we roll back the
forces of terror, led by Iran, that seek to destroy peace, eliminate Israel
and overthrow the world order. The question facing the international
community is whether it is prepared to confront those forces or accommodate
them.
>>
>> Over seventy years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he called the
"confirmed unteachability of mankind," the unfortunate habit of civilized
societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them.
>>
>> Churchill bemoaned what he called the "want of foresight, the
unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of
clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until
self-preservation strikes its jarring gong.”
>>
>> I speak here today in the hope that Churchill's assessment of the
"unteachibility of mankind" is for once proven wrong.
>>
>> I speak here today in the hope that we can learn from history -- that we
can prevent danger in time.
>>
>> In the spirit of the timeless words spoken to Joshua over 3,000 years
ago, let us be strong and of good courage. Let us confront this peril,
secure our future and, God willing, forge an enduring peace for generations
to come.
>>
>> ____________________
>
Israeli PM's speech & Kashmir issue !
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