NEW YORK – Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is addressing the UN General Assembly for the first time, barely 100 days after he was sworn in and ended Benjamin Netanyahu’s more than decade-long premiership.
“For way too long, Israel was defined by wars with our neighbors,” Bennett said in his address. “But this is not what Israel is about. This is not what the people of Israel are about. Israelis don’t wake up in the morning thinking about the conflict. Israelis want to lead a good life, take care of our families, and build a better world for our children.”
Bennett warned the assembly that two problems – the coronavirus and political polarization – were “challenging the very fabric of society at this moment” and have the ability to “paralyze nations.”
Israel, he said, had rejected polarization by forming the government he leads. “What started as a political accident, can now turn into a purpose,” Bennett said. “And that purpose is unity. Today we sit together, around one table. We speak to each other with respect, we act with decency, and we carry a message: Things can be different.”
As for the pandemic, Bennett said Israel had successfully developed a model for managing it by rejecting lockdowns and embracing booster shots. “Lockdowns, restrictions, quarantines – cannot work in the long run,” he said. The government’s decision to begin providing booster shots was a tough one, given the fact that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration hadn’t approved them, but it ultimately paid off, Bennett stated, saying that Israel “pioneered the booster shot.”
Turning to the issue of Iran, Bennett blamed Tehran for funding, training and arming groups that “seek to dominate the Middle East and spread radical Islam across the world,” as well as to destroy Israel. Furthermore, he said, Iran is trying to dominate the region by stretching its presence into Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza, and “[e]very place Iran touches – fails.”
Bennett also warned that Iran’s nuclear weapons program had “hit a watershed moment, and so has our patience,” saying that Tehran has crossed all red lines and ignored international inspections. “Words do not stop centrifuges from spinning,” he said.
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On Sunday, Bennett met in New York with Bahraini Foreign Minister Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani and UAE Minister of State of Foreign Affairs Khalifa Shaheen Almara. He is also slated to meet with the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, as well as with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and representatives of the Jewish community.
The address is expected to focus on the Iranian nuclear weapons program and the Islamic republic’s other hostile military activity in the Middle East. Before boarding the plane on Saturday night, the premier characterized his address as “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 senior member of Bennett’s entourage said the prime minister does not intend to respond to last week’s UN address by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who delivered a one-year ultimatum to Israel to withdraw to pre-1967 borders.
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