Every once in a great while, a leader comes along with the courage to remind us of our shared human values and our need to live up to those values or perish.
The Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, was forced to flee his country in 1936 after the Italians, who had invaded the previous year, used poison gas on civilians in the capital city, Addis Ababa.
It was the League of Nations' first real test. The League slapped Italy with export and import sanctions and condemned the attack. But Italian dictator Benito Mussolini ignored the sanctions, recognizing their toothlessness.
On May 12, 1936, Selassie mounted the dais in Geneva to deliver a speech, imploring the world to save his country. The Italian delegation walked out, thus creating a precedent that continues to this day.
Selassie described the plane attacks that sprayed chemical weapons on the population.
It was thus that, as from the end of January, 1936, soldiers, women, children, cattle, rivers, lakes and pastures were drenched continually with this deadly rain. In order to kill off systematically all living creatures, in order to more surely to poison waters and pastures, the Italian command made its aircraft pass over and over again.
Selassie appealed to the League of Nations to take collective action to save his country and punish Italy. Nothing much happened. And Adolf Hitler watched the proceedings with great interest.
Selassie's courage in the face of unprovoked aggression is remembered to this day. He called for the world to defend the values that unite humanity against barbarism, but the world did not heed his words then.
On Friday, another courageous leader under enormous pressure from an implacable enemy spoke at the United Nations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to a half-full General Assembly after all the Arab states and many African countries walked out to protest what they are calling "genocide" against the Palestinians.
If it is "genocide" that Israel is conducting in Gaza, it's the absolute worst genocide campaign in the history of the world. The Turks murdered 1.5 million Armenians in two years (1915-16). In two years, Hamas says that 68,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed.
Is the Israeli government and military really that incompetent? Is this the best they can do?
Legally, the definition of genocide has not been met. For that to happen, the prosecutor would have to prove, beyond a doubt, that Israel has demonstrated "intent" to commit genocide against Palestinians. No such evidence exists.
No matter. Netanyahu's primary concern is the European nations that decided to accept the fiction that there is, indeed, a state called "Palestine."
Netanyahu shamed those European countries whose support had flagged after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre. They “buckled under the pressure of a biased media, radical Islamist constituencies and antisemitic mobs.”
He also said, “When the going got tough, you caved.”
He railed against countries using economic, political or legal measures against the Jewish state, saying such moves were an indictment not of Israel but of “weak-kneed leaders who appease evil rather than support a nation whose brave soldiers guard you from the barbarians at the gate.”
And he said bitterly that the rush to recognize Palestinian statehood had sent the Palestinians a clear message: “Murdering Jews pays off.”
Exactly right.
Netanyahu knows that the Europeans are a lost cause. He knows their nations are being Islamicized, their populations cowed by Islamic fundamentalism, and European synagogues, Jewish centers, and other symbols of the Jewish religion are vandalized and their people harassed. And he knows that the European governments, in the name of "diversity," won't do much about it.
Israel is now more isolated than it's ever been. That means unity at home is paramount to Israel's survival.
Eli Groner, a former director general of the prime minister’s office, said, “The isolation is real, but Netanyahu calculates that his domestic political base rewards defiance more than conciliation."
"He’s able to use international pushback as proof to Israelis that he’s the only one who won’t bend.”
In recent days, ten countries, including France, the U.K., and Canada, have recognized a Palestinian state. I guess it is, indeed, profitable and rewarding to murder Jews.
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