Kesher Talk

Calling a spade a spade. On many occasions Israel's role at the UN has been to speak truth to power. Yesterday, Israel's UN ambassador Daniel Gillerman continued in that fine tradition.

If you want to read some more kick-ass Israeli speeches to the UN, check out Chaim Herzog's speeches from the '70s.

Ambassador Herzog's response to the "Zionism Is Racism" resolution.
(At the end of this speech he ripped up the draft text of the resolution in front of the General Assembly.)

Racism, Human Rights and Double Standards.
One of the lies about Israel that circulated for years was that everyone else in the world boycotted the apartheid state South Africa except for Israel. Even staunch supporters of Israel become abashed when someone brings up Israel's trade with South Africa. Herzog describes in great detail how every African nation (plus the Soviet Union and Europe and the Arab bloc) continued to trade with SA during the boycott years in much greater volume than Israel, but lied about it.

The Scourge of International Terrorism.
This speech was made after the Israeli raid on Entebbe, which the UN condemned, although it did not condemn Idi Amin for assisting the hijackers. Herzog also names other nations and individuals who helped the hijackers.

If you think the "new antisemitism" is new, read these speeches.

UPDATE: The Herzog memorial site seems to be down - I hope temporarily. I have been trying to find the last two speeches somewhere else on the web - if anyone else find a link for them let me know. In the meantime, I found an address to the UN by Herzog, on the topic of Israeli settlements. No date is given, but it was given during his tenure as ambassador to the UN, which would place it is the mid-'70s. Again, it shows that not much has changed in 3 decades in the attempts to delegitimize Israel.

Here is a little snippet of the Entebbe speech.

Here is a movie of Herzog tearing up the "Zionism=Racism" resolution.

posted by Judith @ 9/16/2003 07:41:38 AM