WarSclerotic

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may not like the UN very much, calling one of its bodies “morally depraved” on Thursday, but he loves addressing it.

Netanyahu relishes the chance to perform at the UN General Assembly, something his aides have attested to over the years, though they really don’t need to.

It’s clear from all the flourishes he uses time and again – the props, puns and pauses – that he’s enjoying himself.

The UNGA is high political theater, with the lines of Shakespeare’s As You Like It brought to life: “All the world’s a stage/ And all the men and women merely players,” and Netanyahu played his usual part.

He displayed pictures of Iranian nuclear facilities, complete with coordinates to search on Google Maps, and a diagram of Hezbollah missile sites in Beirut.

The jokes were quick to follow – there are “radioactive rugs” at the cleaners next to the warehouse and Teheran residents can get Geiger counters for $29.99 on Amazon.com – if there weren’t US sanctions, that is.

But this time, there seemed to be even more righteous indignation simmering behind his words.

Europe is appeasing Iran, he said, emphasizing: “I just used a strong word: appeasement. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what we’re seeing again in Europe.”

A genocidal regime is seeking to wipe out millions of Jews and the world is trying to stay on its good side.

“Have these European leaders learned nothing from history? Will they ever wake up?” Netanyahu asked.

And there was a generous dose of UN-bashing, bringing up how it’s forebear, the League of Nations, said there should be a Jewish state where Israel is today, and the UN voted to confirm that in 1947, but turned around and declared Zionism to be racism. Of course he mentioned how the UN turns a blind eye to the racist, sexist and homophobic regimes among its ranks.

But Netanyahu made sure to end his show on a high note, with Israeli achievements and his pride in his country and its residents.

Netanyahu made strong points and brought the drama needed to draw attention at the UN.

But that night, the hottest show in the US was hearings over allegations that Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh committed sexual assault, distracting many from the UNGA.

Not only did Netanyahu’s performance likely fall on deaf ears in the hostile UN audience, it was unlikely to echo out of Turtle Bay in the world media. Still, the show must go on.

Israel might be among the more disliked countries of the UN’s 193 member states, but its premier is one of its most electric speakers. And when it comes to Iran – a topic on which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is mostly out of the consensus – he has turned the hostile room into his home court.

His annual performances are among the top ‘not to miss moments’ of the event.

Iranian-sponsored terrorism and the nuclear threat it posses has been one of the major topics at the 73rd opening session of the United Nations General Assembly, with US President Donald Trump using its podiums, including at the UN Security Council, to attack the regime in Tehran.

In the US-Tehran showdown, Israel is but a side performer.

But when it comes to oratory, it was Netanyahu, a veteran actor in a well-known play, who brought the house down.

He has come a long way from the moment six years ago, when he held up a diagram of a bomb and drew a red line.

Back then he was alone in his opposition to Iran, with little more than a red magic marker in his arsenal.

He and former president Barack Obama concurred that Iran was dangerous, but they agreed on little else. Back then, Netanyahu needed the United Nations to support his position.

Six years later, with Israel and the Trump administration in lock step, Netanyahu’s confidence was higher, as he unveiled for the room secret evidence to further prove his point that Iran had a nuclear program and has not abandoned it.

Not to leave any room for doubt, Netanyahu held up a large pasteboard with a photograph that read, “Secret Atomic Warehouse.”

He even allowed himself to joke about how people could find the nuclear hideout on Google Maps, as well as the nearby carpet cleaning store which, he quipped, likely has radioactive rugs.

To the endangered residents of Tehran, he suggested buying a Geiger counter on Amazon.

Rather than begging Europe for support to stop Iran’s threats to annihilate Israel, he reminded them that they were just as much in danger.

But Europe was less his verbal target than Tehran, as he reminded the regime that Israel can use its military to halt any attacks or threats against it.

Moreover, his message for Tehran was that it can’t run, and it can’t hide. The value of the information was less about the specifics and more about Israel’s brazenness to use the world stage at the UN to reveal it.

Israel might be a small country, but its eyes are everywhere.

“Israel knows what you’re doing, and where you are doing it,” Netanyahu told Iran’s leaders.

It was the prime minister’s most masterful performance at the United Nations General Assembly.

A US State Department official called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to investigate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims that Iranian official spread 15 kilograms of radioactive material in Tehran last month in an effort to hide a secret atomic facility near a rug factory.

It is “absolutely imperative that the IAEA fully exercise its authorities in order to provide confidence to the international community that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran, the official said in a written statement to Reuters.

On Thursday afternoon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reveals to the UN General Assembly details from the spring cache of documents it had lifted out of Tehran in the spring.

It included a secret autonomic warehouse in Tehran with as much as 300 tons of nuclear related equipment and material.

Netanyahu said according to recent satellite imagine the Iranian regime was now trying to clean out that warehouse.

At his speech to the UN, Netanyahu appealed to the International Atomic Energy Association  head Yukiya Amano to inspect his site and the other relevant material Israel collected.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States is aware of the facility Netanyahu announced and described it as a “warehouse” used to store “records and archives” from Iran’s nuclear program.

A second US intelligence official called Netanyahu’s comments “somewhat misleading.”

“First, we have known about this facility for some time, and it’s full of file cabinets and paper, not aluminum tubes for centrifuges, and second, so far as anyone knows, there is nothing in it that would allow Iran to break out of the JCPOA [nuclear deal] any faster than it otherwise could.”

On Thursday night, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu met with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to discuss Israel’s cache of documents, which it said proves that Iran had a nuclear program and had hidden, but not dismantled it. Netanyahu also asked Guterres to speak with Amano about the evidence.

He also appealed to Guterres to use the powers of his office to mobilize the international community to pressure Hamas to release the remains of two soldiers presumed killed during the 2014 war and two Israeli citizens who have been held there in captivity for the last three and four years.

Separately they also discussed the importance of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) on the Golan Heights and the United Nations Interim Force on the Lebanese border.

The UN issued a statement on the meeting, explaining that the two leaders discussed regional issues and that on “the Middle East Peace Process, the Secretary-General reaffirmed the United Nations’ positions.”

Guterres also met separately with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. According to the Secretary General’s office, he spoke of “the importance of moving the Middle East Peace process forward and underlined their shared commitment for the two-state solution, with Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and Palestine.”

“The Secretary-General highlighted the importance of continued humanitarian and development assistance to the Palestinian people from the international community, particularly through United Nations Relief and Works Agency,” his office said.