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Netanyahu Seeks to Re-assure Israelis as He Departs for Turtle Bay; Abbas also on Thursday Docket

As he prepared to depart for his Thursday speech before the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sought to re-assure his countrymen that “We have overcome many enemies in the past, and we will overcome this one, too.” Netanyahu was referring to the threats by Iranian leaders to destroy the Jewish state, a threat a new poll shows is not taken lightly by Israelis. A poll supervised by Prof. Camile Fuchs of Tel Aviv University that was released on the eve of Yom Kippur showed a mere one-quarter of Israel’s population did not fear for the future of the country in case war breaks out with Iran. Paraphrasing one threat by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Netanyahu admonished in a letter distributed to media and posted on his Facebook page that, “History proves that whoever wants to erase us from the map fails in that task.” On Yom Kippur eve, after joining a synagogue in the neighborhood of the Prime Minister’s Residence for prayers, Netanyahu ascended the pulpit to share the same thought with the congregation, expressing words of assurance that as in many cases recorded in history, the Iranian threat will also pass. Meanwhile in New York, the General Assembly will hear from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday afternoon before Netanyahu addresses the body. At press time, it remained unclear to what degree Abbas will push-ahead with efforts to obtain non-member status for the Palestinian Authority against strong objections by the United States and Israel.