Mr. President,
Excellencies,
At the outset I would like
to express our sincere condolences and deepest sympathies to the French
Republic and to the French people in
the wake of the horrific attacks on Paris, the city of lights, this past
weekend.
We are horrified as well by the bombing of a Russian
plane in Sinai, the bombing in Beirut and by the tragic events ongoing at this
time in Mali.
Terror has
attacked Israel as well this week. But this is rarely, if ever mentioned in
this hall. I’d like thus to remember here these victims of terror. Yesterday,
Palestinian terrorists killed five innocent civilians. Aharon Aviram and Reuven
Yesayev were murdered on their way to prayers in their synagogue.
Later, Yaakov
Don, father of four, Ezra Shwartz, an eighteen year old American volunteer and
Shadi Arafa, a young 26 years old Muslim Palestinian were shot, to death
by a Palestinian terrorist that, like
all terrorists did not distinguish between his victims’ nationality nor their
religion.
We
must condemn all types of terrorism and make clear that terror is terror, no
matter where it attacks and who the
victims are.
Mr. President
Last year, a 9
year-old Syrian boy arrived at the children’s ward of the Western Galilee
Medical Center in northern Israel, with severe injuries. His tale was one that
no boy should experience, seeing his brother decapitated before his very eyes.
Like this young child, there are hundreds of thousands of Syrian children who
have witnessed atrocities that have shocked the conscience of the
civilized world.
Mr. President,
We have all
seen the horrific images of death and destruction in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and
Libya. Hundreds of thousands of lives have already been lost – and still the
international community has yet to respond adequately to this ongoing crisis.
Today, we are witnessing the consequences of years of unchallenged
oppression in each one of these failed states:
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In
Syria, one of the most devastating civil wars in modern history.
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In
Libya, the catastrophic collapse of state institutions
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And
in Yemen, sectarian conflict has taken the lives of thousands.
And yet, the
global community is still grappling with the question of the origins of these atrocities.
In fact, in
2010, even before the “Arab Spring”, the respected Non-Governmental Organization
Freedom House ranked Syria near the very bottom of their “freedom scale”, as a
country with no political rights and hardly any civil liberties.
Fellow
dictatorships, Libya, and Yemen, joined Syria at the bottom of the list.
The world
looked on, in silence, as these engines of autocracy and fundamentalism ruled
their people with fear, and violated human rights with impunity.
If we remain
indifferent to these calamities, we risk sacrificing the principles humanity
holds dear.
And in no place
are these principles more in peril than in Syria.
In Syria, more than a quarter of a million people - men, women and children
- have already been killed. Four million have fled their homes for an unknown
future and eight million more are internally displaced. As we convene
here today to find a solution for the millions of Syrians refugees, Assad’s regime
continues to compete with ISIS in devising the most brutal ways to massacre
innocent people.
And of course, Assad
could not have committed so many atrocities without the help of his
friends in Teheran. Not only is Iran the world’s leading state-sponsor of
terrorism, it is fueling a conflict in which hundreds of thousands have already
been killed. To those who hope that Iran might be a part of the solution to the
problem Daesh poses to all of us, I say sometimes the enemy of your enemy is still
your enemy.
Mr. President,
When it comes
to assisting refugees, humanitarian aid is crucial. We thank the life-saving
efforts of the different UN member states, agencies and personnel.
Humanitarian
aid know no borders, no religion, no race, no gender
and no sexual orientation.
Isra-aid, an Israeli NGO, has helped thousands of Syrian refugees in Jordan
and Eastern Europe, providing them with medical treatment, countless tons of
food and training thousands of local humanitarian staff.
Israel has also
experienced massive waves of migration and refugees in the past. Having absorbed hundreds of
thousands of holocaust survivors and Jewish refugees from Arab countries and having
welcoming over a million Jews from the former Soviet Union and tens of
thousands from Ethiopia, we know well the needs of refugees and immigrants. Our
experience has taught us that only a united community can save the lives of
those desperately seeking shelter.
Mr.
President,
The situation is dire but it is not hopeless. In order to change
the lives of the millions fleeing their homes we must act. Human rights
violations committed by autocratic regimes must not be left
unanswered.
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When
Children are indoctrinated instead of educated, we can no longer sit on
the fence.
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When
women are subjugated, and segregated from the rest of society, we can no
longer stay passive.
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When
corruption fills the vacuum created by failed leadership, we must confront it.
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When
violent fundamentalist ideologies masquerade as legitimate religious beliefs,
we must oppose them.
The millions
fleeing their homes are telling their story in despair. They are tired of repression,
of autocracy, of civil war, and they are tired of religious extremism.
They simply dream of living a normal life in their homeland.
Let us help to make
this dream a reality.
Thank you, Mr.
President.