- Israel should not be left alone to face Iranian threat
’The words outside the UN headquarters, where verses from Isaiah 2 are engraved on the wall, illustrate the centrality of Jerusalem and the Jewish people in achieving world peace. The modern state of Israel should therefore be celebrated and not marginalised by the UN body’, ECI director Tomas Sandell said in a statement on Saturday.
One first step in normalising relations with the Jewish state and the UN is immediately to recognise and respect the Jewish High Holidays and abstain from organising important meetings on these days. This year the Prime Minister of Israel was unable to attend the opening week of the UN General Assembly because of the Jewish holiday of Succot. When the Palestinian delegation spoke in the UN, the whole Israeli delgation was absent - not in protest, but because they were observing Succot, the Feast of Tabernacles.
’No Christian leader would tolerate a UN meeting on Christmas Day, nor would Muslims accept taking part in meetings on Eid al-Fitr, the breaking of the fast on the last day of Ramadan. Leaders who follow Jewish traditions should not be treated any differently’, Sandell said.
More importantly, Israel is the only state which is threatened with annihilation by another UN member state, namely Iran. Although the new Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani struck a more moderate tone in his speech at the UNGA earlier in the week, the international community should demand concrete actions to ensure that he is willing to adhere to the demands of the international community and dismantle his nuclear program.
Although Rouhani is speaking the language of the Western elite, he remains an Iranian insider and a Shiite cleric, committed to the destruction of Israel.
History teaches us that nice words are not enough to achieve ”peace in our time.” President Rouhani continued to offer no concrete proposal as to how he would comply with the demands of the international community but seemed more interested in buying time and delaying the diplomatic process.
As Iran is about to cross the red line set out by the Prime Minister of Israel in his speech last year at the UNGA, the international community now seems less determined to stop the process and more inclined to wait and see.
Israel cannot be left alone to face this existential threat but needs the support and determination of the United Nations. As September 29th marked the 75th Anniversary of the signing of the Munich Agreement the international community should remember the lessons of the past.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be addressing the UNGA on Tuesday morning, local time.
This was the third consecutive year that the European Coalition for Israel has sent a delegation to New York to the Opening Session of the United Nations General Assembly.