Netanyahu’s whirlwind visit to the UN: isolated and combative

As numerous UN delegates walked out of the chamber at the start of Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech, the Israeli Prime Minister said: “If there are any other cowards who haven’t left the chamber, do so now.” ‘Bibi’ spoke about Iran: ‘If we hadn’t destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities, we would be dead, and we have also defended many countries whose delegates have left this chamber. Many of them later thanked us in private. Hypocrites.’ He mentioned his brother Yonatan and the Entebbe raid. He referred to 7 October (“for a country of ten million, it is like 40,000 Americans killed in less than 24 hours”) to justify the wars: “What other country the size of New Jersey would have fought on seven fronts against these barbarians?”. Netanyahu then produced a pager, like those used by Hezbollah that were blown up by Israel.

Netanyahu has always used the General Assembly to stir up public opinion. In 2009, having just returned to power, the day after the speech by Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Netanyahu shouted “shame” whilst displaying maps of Auschwitz. In 2012, he drew a ‘red line’ against Iran’s nuclear programme with a sketch of a bomb and a lit fuse. In 2015, Netanyahu observed forty seconds of silence in protest at the UN’s inaction in the face of Tehran’s intentions. In 2017, Netanyahu addressed the Iranian people in Persian: “You are not our enemies.” In 2023, on the eve of a peace deal with Saudi Arabia that would never materialise, Netanyahu uttered the word “peace” forty times. Then came 7 October. Last year, Netanyahu spoke to a chamber of empty seats and said: “Giving the Palestinians a state one kilometre from Jerusalem after 7 October is like giving al-Qaeda a state one kilometre from New York after 11 September.” In the long shadow of 7 October, Netanyahu yesterday made his shortest visit since he first addressed the UN in 1998. He spent six hours in New York – just long enough to speak and leave – without meeting Donald Trump. For Bibi, there was only one meeting: with the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. The brevity of the visit was due not only to his isolation but also to security concerns and the demonstrations organised by the Mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani. Netanyahu attacked him from the UN Headquarters: “No Jew is safer here in New York.” Meanwhile, five hundred billboards funded by Israel asked: “Which side are you on: Israel and the US, freedom, life and civilisation? Or Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah, terror, death and tyranny?” Even the route of Netanyahu’s flight reflected the unusual nature of the visit. First, his fleet bypassed Ireland – one of the most anti-Israeli countries in Europe – to avoid him being detained (Greece and Italy allowed him to pass through). Then Netanyahu’s plane landed not at JFK, but at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, one hundred kilometres from New York. There was no welcome for the prime minister of the only country that has fought alongside the United States against Iran. Bibi was forced to enter the United States almost in secret, whilst Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian strolled about unchallenged (apart from by the Iranian diaspora). The day before Netanyahu spoke, everyone who had addressed the UN had felt compelled to point the finger at Israel. António Guterres even said he had “never seen killings and destruction like those in Gaza in all my years as Secretary-General”, although during his tenure more than 600,000 people were massacred or starved to death in Ethiopia, 377,000 in Yemen, 150,000 in Sudan and tens of thousands more in Ukraine. At the UN, Netanyahu was not accompanied by the Israeli ambassador, Yechiel Leiter, who had flown back to Israel after a Palestinian terrorist had nearly killed his son, who was on military duty at a checkpoint. “My friends at the UN, do you know what a ballistic missile would do to this building?” Netanyahu asked the General Assembly. “More than a thousand have been fired at us. The days when Jews marched to their deaths are over.”

No country – not even the son of Equatorial Guinea’s dictator, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has been in power since 1979 and spoke before Netanyahu – has ever felt more isolated at the UN Headquarters.