The speech delivered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations on Oct. 1 was, as always, a worthy masterpiece of an indictment against the hypocrisy of the UN and the world, silent in the face of the Iranian threat and its emissary, Hezbollah. It was an articulate speech, worked out down to the smallest detail, including facial expressions and the silence gimmick, but also outstanding in its irrelevance and dissociation from reality. It was the speech of an excellent UN ambassador, not of a veteran and experienced prime minister presenting a vision and agenda to his people and the world.

The speech was dedicated mostly to the Iranian threat. In that sense, it was of no importance given that the agreement with Iran is a done deal. The Palestinian issue only merited a few minutes in Netanyahu’s speech: He blamed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the current situation and reiterated his commitment to the vision of two states. There was no hint in his words of a plan in the face of what appears to be the early signs of a third intifada.

The horrifying murder of young parents Eitam and Naama Henkin near Nablus by Palestinian terrorists in front of their four small children, only an hour after Netanyahu ended his speech, focuses attention on the truly burning issue at hand. The conflict with the Palestinians is not an existential threat to the State of Israel, certainly not when compared with the Iranian motivation to obtain a nuclear bomb and its threats against Israel, but the Palestinian issue is the most pressing and immediate one on the prime minister’s desk. Ignoring it only intensifies it.

The political reactions on the Israeli right, and of course by the prime minister who is still in New York, blamed Abbas. They linked his “inciting” speech the day at the UN General Assembly Sept. 30 to the murder of the Henkin parents, who left behind four children between the ages of 8 months and 9 years.