Netanyahu rattles sabres over Iran

Win battle, lose the war: Photo-wielding Netanyahu puts Iran over ISIS, slams Hamas

Israel's Pri

RT,

29 September, 2014

Bigger than the Islamic State threat – Iran and its nuclear program yet again haunted Benjamin Netanyahu’s address at the UN General Assembly. The Israeli PM also has photo-proof with him of Hamas using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

READ MORE: US softens position on Iranian nuclear program

“Make no mistake – ISIS (Islamic State) must be defeated. But to defeat ISIS and leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power is to win the battle and lose the war," Netanyahu said at the UN headquarters in New York.



"Iran's nuclear military capabilities must be fully dismantled," he added. 

As for Tehran's recent “charm offensive” for the West, its true purpose is to see the international sanctions lifted "and remove the obstacles to Iran's path to the [nuclear] bomb," the prime minister stressed. 



Netanyahu called Iran's concern about the spread of terrorism – earlier voiced by President Hassan Rouhani, from the same lectern – “one of history's greatest displays of doubletalk.” 



He also slammed the countries, which now fully back US-led airstrikes against ISIS, but used to criticize Israel for their war against Hamas in Palestine. 



The PM stressed that Islamic radicals from ISIS and Hamas share the same task “of imposing militant Islam on the world.” 



“Hamas’s immediate goal is to destroy Israel, but it has a broader objective. When it comes to its ultimate goals, Hamas is ISIS, and ISIS is Hamas,” he said.

According to Netanyahu, the 50-day operation in Gaza this summer, which saw 2,100 Palestinians – mainly civilians – killed and some 18,000 homes destroyed, was Israel’s war against “global militant Islam.” 



The head of the Israeli government put the blame for civilian casualties on Hamas, which, he said, committed “the real war crimes” by using ordinary civilians as human shields. 



He refuted claims by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who accused Israel of conducting a “war of genocide” in Gaza in his UN address at the weekend. 

Netanyahu believes that Israel can’t be accused of genocide as it gave advance warnings to Palestinians before shelling neighborhoods in the densely populated Gaza area.

Israel “was doing everything to minimize civilian casualties. Hamas was doing everything to maximize civilian casualties” by placing its rocket launchers in homes, schools and children’s playgrounds, he said. 



The PM also blasted the UN Human Right Council, which sends “a clear message to terrorists to use civilians as human shields” by condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza. 



The Human Right Council “turns the war upside down” and is deserved to be called the “Terrorist Rights Council,” he stressed. 



The Prime Minister also said that such common challenges like nuclear Iran and militant Islam provide a historic opportunity for Israel’s relations with the leading nations in the Arab world. 



According to Netanyahu, Palestine can be reached though good relations with Arab world, but not the other way around as many thought before.