Peter Jenkins takes on Benjamin Netanyahu in "
Barking up the Wrong Tree":
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement to the UN General Assembly today leaves me feeling frustrated. There are more than 30 points in it that I would dearly love to discuss with him, either because they seem to be of questionable veracity, or because they are assertions that are not backed up by evidence.
He has some great points. Many gems that are not known to average readers. For example he debunks Bibi's attempt to say Rouhani instigated the nuclear program:
"Rouhani was Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator between 2003 and 2005. He masterminded the strategy that enabled Iran to advance its nuclear weapons program behind a smoke screen of diplomatic engagement. Here’s what he said in his 2011 book: “While we were talking to the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in Isfahan.”
The US intelligence assessment is that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Francois Nicoullaud, who was France’s ambassador to Iran at the time, has written that it was Dr. Rouhani who, with the support of Iran’s Supreme Leader, ordered abandonment.
Iran’s completion of a uranium conversion plant at Isfahan in 2004 occurred with the full knowledge of Iran’s European negotiating partners, and indeed of the rest of the world, thanks to International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) inspection visits to the site. In doing so, Iran was not in breach of its 2003 agreement with Europe.
or that Iran "has a history of violations" or was "caught red handed" trying develop weapons:
"In 2002 Iran was caught red-handed secretly building an underground centrifuge facility in Natanz."
It is unknowable whether Iran intended the Natanz facility to be secret. In 2002, their safeguards agreement with the IAEA obliged them to declare new facilities 180 days before the first introduction of nuclear material. Well before the 180-day mark, an Israeli-supported anti-Iran organisation proclaimed to the world that Tehran was building a “secret” enrichment facility. An Iranian declaration followed in good time. Personally, I doubt the Iranians could have been naïve enough to intend a large facility to be secret.
Read more here:
http://www.lobelog.com/...
What a shameful display of hypocrisy by Netanyahu. Israel has not only not signed the NPT for it's 200 ready-to-go nuclear warheads. It hasn't even signed the Chemical Weapons Convention and the second / third Geneva Conventions.
Some aide may want to remind him next time he's lecturing the whole world on Iran, that it's Israel that has been condemned by some 80 UNSecurity Council resolutions. If it wasn't for the US veto that number might be in triple digits. That's just the security council. Countless General Assembly resolution have also condemned Israel. That's the country whose prime minister is lecturing the UN on world peace.
I'll leave you with this funny tweet:
https://twitter.com/...