JERUSALEM \u2014 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted visiting U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday with blistering criticism of the international body\u2019s treatment of Israel and accusing it of failing to prevent arms from being smuggled to Lebanon\u2019s Shiite Hezbollah militants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Netanyahu also claimed that Iran is building sites in Syria and Lebanon for the manufacture of \u201cprecision-guided missiles,\u201d with the aim of deploying them against Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both Hezbollah fighters and Iran have backed President Bashar Assad\u2019s government forces in the civil war that has ravaged Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIran is busy turning Syria into a base of military entrenchment, and it wants to use Syria and Lebanon as warfronts against its declared goal to eradicate Israel,\u201d Netanyahu said. \u201cThis is something Israel cannot accept. This is something the U.N. should not accept.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Israeli leader offered no specifics to support his allegations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guterres arrived on Sunday for a three-day visit to the region, his first since taking office at the beginning of the year. His meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders are aimed at encouraging the resumption of peace talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking at a joint press conference with the U.N. chief, Netanyahu criticized the United Nations, saying that it fails to check Palestinian hate speech, \u201cabsurdly denies\u201d Jewish connections to Jerusalem and has not stopped arms from reaching Hezbollah in Lebanon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was referring to a recent U.N. cultural agency resolution about Jerusalem that angered Israel, which said it diminishes Jewish ties to the city. Israel also criticized the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, for being, according to Israel, soft on Iranian-backed Hezbollah forces in the border area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guterres vowed that he will \u201cdo everything in my capacity\u201d to ensure UNIFIL fulfills its obligations. The U.N. peacekeeping force\u2019s mandate is up for renewal at the end of the month and Israel is pressing for the force to have an increased presence to better monitor and prevent what Israel says is Hezbollah building up its weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI understand the security concerns of Israel and I repeat that the idea or the intention or the will to destroy the state of Israel is something totally unacceptable from my perspective,\u201d the U.N. chief said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin called on Guterres to curb what he described as \u201cthe discrimination against Israel\u201d in some U.N. institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guterres, in turn, stressed his commitment to impartiality in \u201ctreating all states equally.\u201d He said those who call for Israel\u2019s destruction peddle in a \u201cform of modern anti-Semitism\u201d \u2014 though he also said he doesn\u2019t always agree with the country\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During a visit to the Holocaust memorial before meeting Israeli leaders, he warned that anti-Semitism remains \u201calive and well\u201d in today\u2019s world and vowed to combat all forms of racism and bigotry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI believe that the horror of the Holocaust should be such that anti-Semitism should now be dead forever,\u201d he said, adding how he was shocked \u201cto listen to the chant of a group of neo-Nazis in a developed country in the world, chanting \u2018blood and soil\u2019, the slogan of the Nazis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guterres will meet Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah on Tuesday in the West Bank. He is due in Gaza on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted visiting U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday with blistering criticism of the international body\u2019s treatment of Israel and accusing it of failing to prevent arms from being smuggled to Lebanon\u2019s Shiite Hezbollah militants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":8,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,8,12,26],"tags":[],"coauthors":[4541],"class_list":["post-17065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-news","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"72AMFYPVJ5EZLE2M63ASJTEA2Y","arc_canonical_url":"\/flashpoints\/2017\/08\/28\/netanyahu-rips-un-says-iran-building-missile-sites-in-syria\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n