The recent uproar over UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' invocation of Article 99 just to oppose Israel's war against Hamas should surprise no one. The UN is an organization that since the dawn of its existence has been lazy to deal with any issue other than condemning Israel and warmly embracing its enemies. This is exactly what happened exactly 35 years ago, when the UN General Assembly convened specifically to hear a speech by Yasser Arafat, the arch-terrorist responsible for the killing of thousands of Jews, and quite a few others, in recent decades as part of the terror attacks he orchestrated as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). About the speech we will tell with the help of ChatGPT.
The UN decision to provide a platform for Arafat was supported by some member states and condemned by others, reflecting the deep divisions surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. US President Ronald Reagan stood by Israel in its opposition to the speech and rejected Arafat's visa application to enter the United States to speak at the UN building in New York. European countries condemned the decision, arguing that dialogue was needed to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (something Reagan really didn't need – he himself had already negotiated with Arafat in 1984, and he rejected the American president's proposed agreement entirely), and rushed to move the special meeting to the other UN headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
Arafat, born in 1929 and founded the PLO in 1964, was a proud terrorist, and by 1988 he had at least dozens of Jews in the blood on his hands. Among other things, he was responsible for the Ma'a lot massacre (1974, 25 killed), the Coastal Road massacre ("Bloody Bus", 1978, 38 killed) and the ambush in Hebron (1980, 6 killed).
In his speech, Arafat declared the establishment of the State of Palestine, repeating again and again the mantras desired by the West, according to which it would be a civilized and moral state. One of the main emphases of the speech was the rejection of terrorism (the word is mentioned in it 10 times) – but an in-depth look at the text reveals that whenever he mentioned that he rejected terrorist activity, he immediately hinted that it was necessary in the case of the Palestinians, and that those who at the time were considered terrorists for their activity against Israel would in the future be considered heroes and leaders of their people (which, of course, happened later). He even eulogized Khalil al-Wazir ("Abu Jihad"), the founder of Fatah who planned many terrorist attacks in which over 70 Israelis were murdered, calling him "a martyr who fell into the hands of terrorists." He even went so far as to claim that Israel was the terrorist in the conflict.
Despite all this, it is not surprising that most representatives of the UN states gave Arafat a standing ovation, and only representatives of Israel and the United States came out demonstratively. As then, Israel stands alone against an organization that does everything possible to justify violence against it and condemn any defensive action on its part, when even American backing is not enough to balance the horribly biased picture portrayed in the body that arose in the wake of the Holocaust in order to ensure that its horrors will not return.
Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us