As Far as
Worldwide Threats, Israel Tops Iran By a Wide Margin (La Jornada,
Mexico)
"The
primary concern when it come to the precariousness of global peace today is not
Tehran, but Tel Aviv.... Equally unacceptable
is that the U.S. president should use his speech to the U.N. to formulate new
condemnations of Iranian nuclear energy development without at the same time
explicitly rejecting Israel's repeated saber-rattling toward the country."
In his address to world leaders at the 67th opening of the U.N. General Assembly, Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke of the length of time Jews have been in Israel, the way they have 'defied the laws of history' by restoring their nation, and in a rare move, he used a graphic to outline to world leaders how close Iran is to obtaining the uranium needed for a nuclear weapon.
At the U.N. General Assembly meeting on Thursday, Israel
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Iran would be able to produce a nuclear
weapon by the middle of next year, and he called on the international community
to give Tehran an ultimatum.
The words of the Israeli premier, who for several months now
has been hinting at his nation's readiness to mount a unilateral attack on the
Islamic Republic, comes on top of those of U.S. President Barack Obama, who in
the same venue on Wednesday said that his country will do everything necessary
to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and that the time for a
diplomatic solution is not unlimited. Significantly, on the same day, the Iranian
government made on offer to the International Atomic Energy Agency to stop its program
to enrich uranium to 20 percent if the West lifts sanctions against it, and which
have placed Iran in a state of virtual political and economic isolation.
Posted
by Worldmeets.US
The hostility of Netanyahu's speech, as well as his deafness
to what should be considered a goodwill gesture by Iran, once again highlights that
the primary concern when it come to the precariousness of world peace is not
Tehran, but Tel Aviv. After all, beyond the real possibility that the Islamic
country could build a nuclear weapon, there is the saga of aggressions suffered
by the country beginning with U.S.-operated interventions in the first seven
decades of the last century, followed by Iraq's U.S.-supported attack and the current
hostile policies of Washington and its allies. This is in stark contrast with Israel's
ample record of war crimes, atrocities and human rights violations,
particularly against the Palestinian people, which makes the country, in the
eyes of the international community, an aggressive power that customarily
violates the law.
In this context, Netanyahu’s statement that members of the
international community which have refused to put red lines in front of Iran now
lack the moral authority to put such limits on Israel, are inappropriate. In
fact, it was precisely a lack of such limits on Israel that allowed Tel Aviv to
carry out all sorts of outrages around the world without any fear of reprisal;
to systematically evade IAEA inspections despite its
possession of - as far as we know - the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle
East; and ultimately, to loom as a much more real threat than Iran's nuclear
program.
Equally unacceptable is that the U.S. president should use
his speech to the U.N. session to formulate new condemnations of Iranian
nuclear energy development without at the same time explicitly rejecting Israel's
repeated saber-rattling toward the country. Such an attitude stirs up the
bellicose spirits of U.S. and Israeli hawks, and demonstrates again the double
standard that is so characteristic of Washington’s foreign policy.
