"Have You No Shame" – Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Speech before the UN General Assembly [24.9.2009]

On 24 September 2009, during the United Nations General Assembly's 64th Annual Session, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu delivered remarks before the Assembly's participants.[1]  In his speech, PM Netanyahu referred to several counter-terrorism issues, including Iranian support of terrorist groups, Israel's right to defend itself from continuous terrorist attacks and rockets from Gaza, and the report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.

This short article presents a brief discussion of the speech within the framework of the IDI Terrorism and Democracy Newsletter.

The United Nations General Assembly's 64th Annual Session took place on 15-30 September 2009. During the session, leaders of all UN member states are entitled to give a 15 minute speech before the General Assembly.
In his speech, delivered on 24 September 2009, PM Netanyahu referred,inter alia,  to a number of issues related to Israel's and other democracies' fight against terrorism.

PM Netanyahu's speech referred, among other things, to the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas, which took place between 27 December 2008 and 17 January 2009 ("Operation Cast Lead"). PM Netanyahu addressed the legitimacy of the Israeli operation as an act of self-defense in response to eight years of rockets launched from Gaza into Israeli territory against Israeli civilians, and civilian buildings and facilities. During this period, Israel withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip. However, throughout this time, neither the UN General Assembly nor the UN Human Rights Council passed a single resolution condemning these acts of terrorism against Israel, which Netanyahu claims are Iranian sponsored.

PM Netanyahu compared Israel’s decision to initiate “Operation Cast Lead,” with the Allies' response, which leveled and destroyed German cities, to the massive rocket attacks against British cities by the Nazis during World War Two. Netanyahu pointed out the fact that Israel chose to respond differently. Although Israel dealt with terrorist organizations that committed two major war crimes – that of attacking Israeli civilians and, at the same time, of hiding behind Palestinian civilians and using them as human shields – it did its best to minimize civilian casualties by urging them to evacuate the targeted areas and issuing specific warnings, as military circumstances allowed.
Moreover, PM Netanyahu addressed the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict ("The Goldstone Report"), [2] claiming that the report condemns the victims and "falsely equates the terrorists with those they targeted." PM Netanyahu referred to the report as biased and unjust, and called on governments worldwide to stand behind Israel and reject this report to demonstrate its support of Israel’s struggle against terrorism and its right to self defense, which is the basis of any future peace process.

PM Netanyahu took advantage of the stage afforded to him at the UN General Assembly to point out some of the toughest issues facing Israel in its counter-terrorism efforts, including the staggering imbalance between the demands and obligations placed on a state fighting terrorism as compared to those of terrorist organizations attacking a state and its civilian population.

PM Netanyahu noted that the modus operandi of terrorist organizations – direct attacks against civilians while hiding among their own civilian population – is deeply problematic for democracies. Israel was compelled to respond militarily, a response that unfortunately led to civilian deaths. While Netanyahu is no doubt correct in addressing the challenge posed by the tactics embraced by Palestinian militants, his comments appear to conflate, by and large, the lawfulness of the Israeli operation (as a jus ad bellum issue[3]) with the choice of specific targets, means, and methods of warfare embraced by the Israeli military (jus in bello).

Netanyahu did offer some interesting observations on the problems associated with equating a state that acts in accordance with the rules of international humanitarian law (IHL) with a globally declared terrorist organization, whose methods are not only violations of IHL, but are also directed against a state that is bound by these rules, fully exploiting this fact. Such an equation ignores the normative asymmetry (which is a mirror image of the military asymmetry) of such conflicts, and could lead to a skewed legal and political analysis of the situation.

1. www.pmo.gov.il/PMOEng/Communication/PMSpeaks/speechUN240909.htm 
   
   
2. See a discussion of the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict in the current issue of the IDI Terrorism and Democracy Newsletter.
   
   
3. For a discussion on the jus ad bellum framework of the Israeli response see issue no. 2 of the IDI Terrorism and Democracy Newsletter.