I haven’t always been the biggest fan of Benjamin Netanyahu. He seemed something of a careerist with the capacity to talk out of both sides of his mouth. In other words, a politician. But who could decry anyone with the guts to stand in the belly of the United Nations — as he did last Friday — and define that paleo-corrupt institution precisely as it is — a “house of many lies”?

Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress back in May was also widely applauded by a friendly audience. But this address — before a body that welcomes Iranian President Ahmadinejad for the so-called Durban III conference against racism, an inversion of human rights not even Orwell could have imagined — was in the least collegial of atmospheres.

And yet his talk was extremely eloquent and well-delivered. In an atmosphere former NY Mayor Koch describes as a “cesspool,” Netanyahu was the only man, the only statesman, genuinely to stand up for the principles of guilt-ridden Western civilization. More