{"id":626414,"date":"2026-09-24T21:32:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T21:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/626414\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T21:32:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T21:32:27","slug":"netanyahu-calls-israels-war-in-gaza-opposite-of-genocide-in-un-speech-united-nations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/626414\/","title":{"rendered":"Netanyahu calls Israel\u2019s war in Gaza \u2018opposite of genocide\u2019 in UN speech | United Nations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Benjamin Netanyahu delivered an inflammatory address to the United Nations on Thursday, decrying what he said was a global anti-Jewish conspiracy and swatting aside criticism of Israel\u2019s war in Gaza, as he faces down international isolation and a fight for political survival in upcoming elections in Israel.<\/p>\n

As planned protests erupted on the streets of New York<\/a> City, Netanyahu took aim at critics of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the international media, regional leaders such as Turkey\u2019s Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, the leftwing commentator Hasan Piker and the New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani in an address that doubled as a stump speech to ignite his rightwing base for the elections.<\/p>\n

Invoking his late brother Yonatan Netanyahu, a commando killed in a 1976 raid to free Israeli hostages from a hijacked airliner in Entebbe, Uganda, he repeated the lines: \u201cWe are going to win. We have no other choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dozens of delegates, inspired by a Palestinian call, walked out of the General Assembly Hall of the UN headquarters as Netanyahu took the stage, leading a speaker to pound his gavel and announce: \u201cI\u2019m calling for order in the hall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palestinian representatives organising diplomatic missions to bring staff for a planned walkout of Netanyahu\u2019s speech said they wanted to \u201csend a clear message to Netanyahu and his government that no one is willing to aid, abet, or be complicit in its genocide and war crimes and illegal occupation, which all peace-loving states and peoples demand must come to an end\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there are any other moral cowards in the audience, I urge them to walk out,\u201d Netanyahu said before launching into his prepared remarks.<\/p>\n

\"UNUN delegates walk out as Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to address general assembly \u2013\u00a0video<\/p>\n

The speech revealed little new in terms of Israeli policy over the war in Gaza<\/a>, militant settler violence in the West Bank, or Israel\u2019s plans to end other regional conflicts including its joint war with the United States against Iran.<\/p>\n

But he argued that the world faced an existential threat from Iran, suggesting that several missiles from Tehran could have destroyed the UN, and cited quiet support from world leaders for Israel\u2019s actions that could not be aired in public.<\/p>\n

\u201cDevastating Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities was \u2026 very hard to do,\u201d he said of launching joint US-Israeli strikes in February. \u201cBut for me, it was one of the easiest decisions I\u2019ve ever had to make as prime minister. Because if we hadn\u2019t done it, we\u2019d all be dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

He branded Turkey\u2019s Erdo\u011fan as a \u201ctyrant\u201d who \u201chosts Hamas terrorists\u201d, decried Mamdani as the \u201cantisemitic mayor of New York\u201d, and declared that Israel\u2019s war in Gaza is not genocide \u2013 \u201cit\u2019s the opposite of genocide\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, to all those spreading these lies about my country and about our brave soldiers, whether they sit in this hall or in the office of the antisemitic mayor of New York, I say this: shame on you!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu delivered the controversial address to the United Nations<\/a> on Thursday just hours after Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said his delegation was \u201cunlawfully\u201d denied visas by the Trump administration to attend the meeting of world leaders.<\/p>\n

In a video address from Ramallah, broadcast in the General Assembly Hall, Abbas condemned Israel\u2019s policies in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem as a \u201cmalicious colonial plan\u201d to establish a \u201c\u2018Greater Israel\u2019 and erase the Palestinian presence\u201d.<\/p>\n

Citing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the violent expansion of settlements in the West Bank, Abbas said that the Israeli government \u201cnow threatens the very life and existence of the Palestinian people in their homeland\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo not allow another Nakba and further massacres like those of 1948 to continue taking place,\u201d he added, referring to the expulsion of Palestinians upon the founding of Israel.<\/p>\n

For the second year in a row, the US state department denied visas to Abbas and the Palestinian Authority delegation, arguing that they had failed to live up to their commitments to seek peace with Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a consequence of their failure to reform, contrary to their commitments to the United States, and their ongoing activities that undermine the prospects for peace, the United States will extend sanctions that deny visas to PLO members and PA officials,\u201d the state department said last week in a statement.<\/p>\n

In his speech, Abbas said his delegation \u201c[rejects] these unlawful punitive measures, as well as the accusations and justifications on which they were based\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cPreventing the Palestinian delegation from reaching United Nations headquarters is inconsistent with the obligations of the United States as the host country.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he spoke, protests were forming on the streets of New York near the United Nations headquarters in advance of Netanyahu\u2019s arrival.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of demonstrators crowded into the street on Manhattan\u2019s east side in midtown and held signs that said \u201cEnd the Genocide\u201d and wore shirts reading \u201cFund people not bombs\u201d. By the end of Netanyahu\u2019s speech, more than 100 demonstrators, including several local elected officials, had been arrested by New York City police.<\/p>\n

Earlier this summer, the mayor, Zohran Mamdani, had said that Netanyahu was \u201cnot welcome\u201d in New York, and said he was reviewing whether Netanyahu could be arrested by city police under an international criminal court warrant for his arrest.<\/p>\n

He has since tempered that stance, saying this week that he wouldn\u2019t attend the protests but promising to protect their \u201cright to [protest] in this city\u201d.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu is not expected to meet Donald Trump, who is in Washington to host the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, nor with other senior US officials, as he faces growing international condemnation over his hardline stance. Netanyahu has said that he needs to return to Israel quickly because of the election campaign and the holiday of Sukkot, which begins on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Benjamin Netanyahu delivered an inflammatory address to the United Nations on Thursday, decrying what he said was a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-626414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}