UN General Assembly

Yesterday:

I watched CBC Newsworld's live coverage of speeches by both the president of Iran and Egypt - about 20 minutes for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (out of a 35 minute speech) and about 15 minutes by Morsi.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for a new world order encompassing peace and security for all, and condemned the excesses of capitalism, and made a shot at Israel's Zionists for threatening war against his country. 

Morsi went straight into the injustice of the Palestinian situation and the unlawful occupation of their land by Israel, and called for Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.

I wonder if the Americans felt some discomfort at Morsi's comments, given that they pay Egypt over $2billion a year to keep the peace with Israel.

Netanyahu speaks.

A CBC commentator said Abbas accused Israel of "ethnic cleansing" but I didn't see that comment in the closed captioning of the session. Maybe it was from a different translation service.

"A nuclear Iran will arm Al-Queda"

Iran has killed Americans everywhere (Iraq, Afganistan, etc...), has embedded thousands of missiles and rockets in Gaza and elsewhere.

Nothing imperils Israel more than a nuclear Iran.

Netanyahu says he's been speaking against a nuclear Iran for 15 years - but now the hour is getting late.

A clear red line must be drawn against Iran's nuclear weapons program - like JFK drew a red line in the Cuba missile crisis, like NATO drew a red line around Europe against the Soviets (not sure I got that right).

He referred to Abbas' speech as "libellious" which I guess is his way of disregarding it entirely. If he truly wants peace in the Middle East, let him take the first step, and stop obstructing the Palestinians from statehood.

ETA: CBC Newsworld carried both Abbas's and Netanyahu's speeches in their entirety.

Bibi explaining Iran's bomb:

Best comment so far today:

"Sheesh...looks like Wile E. Coyote trying to explain his next clever plan to catch the Roadrunner. That picture would get laughed out of a University Political Science class much less the United Nations."

Boris Badenov Apparently Working on Iranian Nuclear Program 

Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to use a cartoonish bomb diagram at the U.N. this afternoon to help demonstrate the Iranian nuclear threat may have been, as Buzzfeed's Zeke Miller suggests, a clever way to go viral and get his message some attention. At the same time, if you're trying to convince the world in general, and the United States in particular, to take Iran's presumed pursuit of nuclear weapons more seriously, maybe using a prop straight out of Rocky and Bullwinkle isn't the way to go.

On my Facebook feed this morning: "...And if Israeli intelligence thinks that’s what a real bomb looks like, maybe their other projections are off as well." 

Netanyahu Bombs at the UN

excerpt:

Of course, Netanyahu has looked like a bizarre version of Paul Revere for years now. (As he himself said yesterday at the UN: “I’ve been speaking about the need to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons for over fifteen years.”) No one, or almost no one, believes that Iran is a vast nuclear threat and that the United States (or Israel) has to bomb it in weeks or months or, as Netanyahu suggests, at the latest next summer. Not the Obama administration, which is treating Netanyahu as if it wishes it could haul out a straitjacket and a syringe. Not the Israel national security establishment, which is almost universally opposed to a strike on Iran. Not the Iran Project—which represents a cross section of the American national security establishment and has laid out, in detail, why there’s no need to go to war against Iran.

But few people, other than The Nation, are willing to say that Netanyahu might actually be crazy. To be sure, Netanyahu is a sly one, and his bomb-rattling over Iran has served at least one useful purpose, as I’ve pointed out repeatedly, namely, he has focused the world’s attention away from Palestine. Half the world is so concerned that Bibi Netanyahu might bomb Iran and thus trigger a vast conflict in the Middle East, sending oil prices skyrocketing and many thousands to their deaths, that it’s walked on tiptoes around him. It’s long past time to stop that. If Netanyahu isn’t actually crazy—and, in the process, whipping up the deep-seated, unstable fears of the Holocaust among his supporters—then he’s a really good actor.

Been a long time, Diogenes. How have you been?