Right-wing MKs applaud PM, but Left unimpressed

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s UN address was met with criticism Monday night from opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Labor Party), who maintained that the speech did not advance a peace accord with the Palestinians, while right-wing MKs praised the prime minister for his remarks.

Hamas, for its part, derided Netanyahu’s speech and claimed that the prime minister’s photo of a Hamas rocket launcher next to Palestinian children in Gaza was a fabrication. Spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri also dismissed allegations that the terror group used civilians as human shields during the 50-day conflict with Israel last summer.

Posting a statement on Facebook shortly after Netanyahu descended from the podium in New York City, Herzog remarked that “Netanyahu knows how to give an address, and I agreed with a lot of his statements, but the problem is that the world is not listening to him.

“It’s not clear which Netanyahu we should believe — the one who speaks again about a political compromise; or the one who, during his five-year leadership, took care not to advance a political initiative,” continued the Labor Party leader and opposition chief.

The world is demanding that Netanyahu make an offer that takes Israel’s security needs into consideration, and he is not providing it, Herzog charged.

This sentiment was echoed by Meretz MK Zahava Gal-on, who said: “Netanyahu must understand that the world doesn’t care what he says. It cares what he does. And he does nothing.

“It’s time Netanyahu stopped his whiny and victimized intimidation campaign before the world, and began to examine what he can do to improve the reality that his dreadful government has created here,” she added.

In his speech, Netanyahu was critical of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who, days earlier, had accused Israel of perpetrating “genocide” against the Palestinians. He also, however, voiced cautious optimism for a peace accord based on an updated version of the Arab Peace Initiative, and said that, while previously many had believed that peace with the Palestinians would lead to regional ties, it now seemed that regional ties with relatively moderate Arab countries could push Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects forward.

Likud MK Ze’ev Elkin welcomed Netanyahu’s remarks as “an appropriate response to the lies and slanders” of Abbas,” but called on the government “to move from words to actions.”

In reference to the PA leader’s speech, Elkin said Abbas must know that his tactics in the international arena “will exact a painful price that he and the PA will have to pay.

“It’s inconceivable that Abu Mazen [Abbas], who is dependent on us at every stage and for nearly everything, will continue to enjoy our help and at the same time conduct a diplomatic and advocacy war against us,” continued Elkin.

Fellow Likud MK Danny Danon, who was fired from his position of deputy defense minister by the prime minister during Operation Protective Edge, praised Netanyahu for dedicating much of his speech to the threat of radical Islamists.

Netanyahu “did well in that he stressed the threat to the nations from Islamic terror, which has been in our backyard for 66 years.”

Danon continued: “This year there was no need for any kind of diagrams: The beheading videos from the Islamic State producers demonstrated the dangers better than anything else. The world is in a bad movie and is burying its head in the sand in the hope that the danger will pass. We need to know that we can only rely on ourselves.”

Drawing a parallel between the Islamic State and Hamas, Netanyahu said: “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.”

PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi also responded to Netanyahu’s speech, calling it “a blatant manipulation and an attempt to mislead [the world] using a combination of hate speech, slander, and embarrassing claims.”

“It seems he has lost touch with reality,” she said, employing the same phrase Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman had used about Abbas earlier on Monday, “especially in that he refuses to acknowledge the fact that the occupation itself, or the Israeli army, are the perpetrators of war crimes and slaughter.

“Instead of attacking President Abu Mazen [Abbas] and the United Nations Human Rights Council, he needs to recognize the crime and take responsibility for his actions,” added Ashrawi.