Trump UN Speech Rebukes Anti-Semitism, Disregard for Christian Persecution, Hall Pass for Iran

In today’s divisive politics, it’s often possible to tell what a speech achieved based on who it angered. In the case of President Donald Trump’s Tuesday speech before the U.N. General Assembly, those most angered by the speech were global media elites. “Trump invades the UN with a brutish speech,” raged a headline in The Guardian, a British equivalent of The New York Times. Such an attitude signals that, besides excessive self-congratulation and an over-emphasis on AI, Trump’s speech had much to commend it.

At the very least, “there was a welcome difference in emphasis in terms of what the president said compared to what other leaders talked about,” said Foundation for Defense of Democracy (FDD) senior analyst Ben Cohen (to be distinguished from Ben Cohen, the anti-Semitic co-founder of Ben and Jerry’s) on “Washington Watch.”

“Uppermost” in his mind was Israel’s war with Hamas, “because Trump made absolutely clear — went out of his way to remind his audience — that the third anniversary of the atrocities of October the 7th is upon us in about two weeks. And he talked about, again, the depravity and the bestiality that Hamas unleashed on Israeli citizens that day. And, in the three years since those atrocities, we’ve rather lost sight of that.”

“One year ago, when I addressed the great leaders in this hall, the war in Gaza was still raging brutally,” Trump reminded his hearers. Amid a world on metaphorical fire, it seems much longer than that. “The hostages were still deep in Hamas tunnels, and there was no end in sight,” Trump said. “It was never going to be resolved. But here on the sidelines of the General Assembly, we took the first steps. That changed everything. A few weeks later, we ended the war in Gaza, saving untold thousands of lives. We also brought home all remaining hostages, both living and dead.”

But Trump’s vision of the world was not limited by that one moment of breakthrough. “The other thing that the president achieved with his speech today was to remind the U.N. that there are conflicts beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Cohen added. “The U.N. is absolutely obsessed with it. If you look at the speeches of many of the other leaders, they typically began by referring to it.”

“It really is like many of those delegates to the United Nations live in a parallel universe,” agreed Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, “when they get up there and they start talking about these things.”

“Trump didn’t do that,” Cohen continued. “Trump talked about the war in Ukraine. He talked about what the U.S. has achieved in Venezuela since the unseating, nearly a year ago, of Nicolás Maduro. And … he talked about really one of the great hidden persecution issues in our world today, which is the persecution of Christians, particularly in the Middle East.”

“Since I took office, it has been my great honor to settle eight wars,” Trump proclaimed. “Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, Pakistan and India, Armenia and Azerbaijan,

and of course the war in Gaza, which, as I stated previously, includes the return of all hostages, both living and dead.”

“We’re working very closely with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine, and we will get that one done,” Trump added. “Last week, in honor of Senator Lindsey Graham, I signed a powerful new law passed by Congress providing me with enormous new tariff authorities. And if necessary, I will have to use them. It’s time to stop the killing.”

With regard to Venezuela, Trump mentioned that, “at my direction, the United States military conducted a massive military operation, penetrating deep into the Venezuelan capital, Caracas descended on a heavily defended and fortified military base — one that was supposed to be flawless against attack — and arrested the outlaw dictator, real criminal Nicolás Maduro.”

“Since that day, hundreds of Venezuelan political prisoners have been freed,” Trump continued. “They’ve let them out of jails, and we’re working closely with the leaders of Venezuela to forge a much better future for the Venezuelan people.”

Trump also criticized “the craven hypocrites of Human Rights Council” who “have little to say about the persecution of Christians” but “spend their time criticizing the United States for protecting our children from transgender utilization and transgender insanity.”

“Christians are being persecuted all over the world,” Trump declared. “It’s not even believable. … It’s been happening for a long time. So this is persecution of Christians … of the world’s most repressive regimes. Yet they want America to open up our borders to gangs and criminals from world’s most dangerous places.”

With inconvenient truths like this, no wonder The Guardian worked so hard to dismiss Trump’s speech as “brutish.” Call it a mean name, and then no one looks deeper to see what he actually said — it’s quite Trumpian of them, actually.

Trump made the most news for publicly delivering a fiery ultimatum to the Iranian regime. “I have a big decision to make,” he said. “Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East, or even the world? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness for generations?”

Just as he drew the world’s unwilling attention to the crimes of Hamas, so he turned a spotlight on the crimes of Hamas’s masters. “There is no better example of a danger that was allowed to gather strength at the world’s peril than the number one sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump warned. “For 51 years, the fanatical Iranian regime has ruled by bloodshed and mass murder, spreading death and carnage and chaos across the entire Middle East and beyond. They were the bully of the Middle East, but they are the bully no more.”

“As a result of Operation Epic Fury, all 159 ships of their navy are now lying at the bottom of the sea. Likewise, their air force is gone. Their radar is gone, their anti-aircraft equipment is gone. Their missiles and drone manufacturing capacity is almost gone. Their economy is gone,” Trump listed. “Yet even after we agreed to a ceasefire for nuclear discussions, Iran promptly violated it with brazen acts of terrorism against civilian ships from other countries.”

After the speech, American and Iranian diplomats held “a three-hour meeting in which looks like a deal might be available,” Perkins noted. “We’ve heard that before.”

But will Trump’s U.N.-pressure campaign this year meet the same breakthrough with Iran that he achieved last year on Gaza? Or will his high-stakes speech fade into the past as another ignored ultimatum? That is the high-stakes game Trump is playing — all while taking a stance much different from that of the world elites.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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