["Netanyahu made clear with his little map today what
normalization really seeks: eliminating Palestine... from the region
and legitimizing greater Israel, all with the blessing of Arab
regimes," one critic said. ]
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NETANYAHU SHOWS MAP OF ‘NEW MIDDLE EAST’—WITHOUT PALESTINE—TO
UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY  
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Brett Wilkins
September 22, 2023
Common Dreams [[link removed]]

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_ "Netanyahu made clear with his little map today what normalization
really seeks: eliminating Palestine... from the region and
legitimizing greater Israel, all with the blessing of Arab regimes,"
one critic said. _

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a map of "The New
Middle East" without Palestine during his September 22, 2023 address
to the United Nations General Assembly in New York., (AP/Richard Drew)


 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu angered Palestinians and
their defenders Friday after presenting a map of "The New Middle East"
without Palestine during his speech to the United Nations General
Assembly in New York.

Speaking to a largely empty chamber, Netanyahu—whose far-right
government is widely considered 
[[link removed]]the
most extreme in Israeli history—showed a series of maps, including
one that did not show the West Bank, East Jerusalem, or Gaza. These
Palestinian territories have been illegally occupied by Israel since
1967, with the exception of Gaza—from which Israeli forces withdrew
in 2005, while maintaining an economic stranglehold over the densely
populated coastal strip.

_Middle East Eye_reported
[[link removed]] Netanyahu
also held up a map of "Israel in 1948"—the year the modern Jewish
state was established, largely through the ethnic cleansing
[[link removed]] of more than
750,000 Arabs—that erroneously included the Palestinian territories
as part of Israel.

Palestinian Ambassador to Germany Laith Arafeh said
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social media that there is "no greater insult to every foundational
principle of the United Nations than seeing Netanyahu display before
the UNGA a 'map of Israel' that straddles the entire land from the
river to the sea, negating Palestine and its people, then attempting
to spin the audience with rhetoric about 'peace' in the region, all
the while entrenching the longest ongoing belligerent occupation in
today's world."

As _Middle East Eye _noted:

The inclusion of Palestinian lands (and sometimes land belonging
to Syria
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common among believers of the concept of Eretz Yisrael—Greater
Israel—a key part of ultra-nationalist Zionism that claims all of
these lands belong to a Zionist state.

Earlier this year, Netanyahu's finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich,
spoke from a podium adorned with a map that also included Palestine,
Lebanon, and Syria as part of Greater Israel. In the same event, he
said
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was "no such thing as Palestinians."

The use of such maps by Israeli officials comes at a time when
Netanyahu's ultra-nationalist government has taken steps that experts
say amount to the "de jure annexation
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of the occupied West Bank.

Netanyahu used the maps in an attempt to illustrate the increasing
number of Arab countries normalizing relations with Israel under the
Abraham Accords brokered by the administration of former U.S.
President Donald Trump.

"There's no question the Abraham Accords heralded the dawn of a new
age of peace," the Israeli prime minister said. "But I believe that we
are at the cusp of an even more dramatic breakthrough, an historic
peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Peace between Israel and Saudi
Arabia will truly create a new Middle East."

Critics have countered
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peace between apartheid Israel and Arab dictatorships has come at the
cost of advancing Palestinian rights. In the case of Morocco, the
United States recognized
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North African nation's illegal annexation and brutal occupation of
Western Sahara in exchange for normalization with Israel.

Netanyahu's props on Friday reminded numerous observers of the time
during his 2012 General Assembly speech when he used
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cartoon drawing of a bomb to illustrate Iran's progress on advancing a
nuclear weapons program that both U.S. and Israeli intelligence
agencies said
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not exist.

_Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams._

* Isreal/ Palestine
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* Benjamin Netanyahu
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* United Nations
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* Palestinian territories
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* Israeli right-wing
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