In a UN speech delivered by his daughter on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, U.S. congressman and chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Tom Lantos (D-CA) laid into the UN for its efforts to de-legitimatize Israel, as the Jewish state faces a renewed threat to its very existence:

Two generations after the Holocaust, I never thought – I could not even have imagined – that within the structure of the United Nations there would be some who would attempt to de-legitimatize the Jewish State, the State of Israel, founded and built by the remnants of European Jewry and by the hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled from Arab lands.

The UN deserves to be hammered on this point, but Lantos’ words raise the question: why was he so ill-prepared for this revelation? It’s harder to imagine that there are some “within the structure of the United Nations” who don’t attempt to de-legitimatize Israel. The Jerusalem Post reports: “Lantos lamented the fact that the UN chamber was too often the setting for “shameless invective against Israel.” Well, it’s his fellow Democrats who seek the approval of said chamber.

Lantos added, “Just as an earlier dictator pledged to destroy the Jews of Europe, so a new one is threatening to destroy the Jewish State.” But according to prominent members of his party, Iran has been effectively deterred from waging such an attack. Moreover, after the release of December’s NIE claiming that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons development, Lantos had this to say:

This newest information supports what I have said all along: We need to give diplomacy with Iran more of a chance. I continue to favor dialogue between our two countries, in contrast to the Administration’s belligerent and stiff-necked refusal to talk with Tehran. And I believe we need to use every means at our disposal – economic, political and diplomatic – to persuade Iranians that peaceful development of energy options, free of any hint of military use, is well within reach.

So: which is it Tom?