Dozens of activists, including some politicians and celebrities, blocked First Avenue at 39th Street in protest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday.
People stood and sat in the street, linked arms and blocked traffic. Their shirts read “No war, no ICE, free Palestine.” The NYPD detained several people.
Closer to the United Nations at 47th Street and First Avenue, differing opinions were voiced within the Jewish community about Netanyahu’s speech to the General Assembly.
One New Yorker, who was for Netanyahu addressing the United Nations, told NY1, “He is the prime minister of Israel, duly elected by the people, and he has every right to come to the United Nations.”
Rabbi Jill Jacobs, the CEO of a Jewish group called T’ruah, is vehemently against Netanyahu.
“American Jews and Israelis living in New York are not going to stand by as Prime Minister Netanyahu has blood on his hands,” she told NY1.
T’ruah demonstrated outside the U.N., calling Netanyahu’s government the most extreme Israel has ever had.
“We’re not going to stand by and continue to perpetuate endless war instead of search for peace that will grant dignity and safety to Palestinians and others in the region,” Jacobs said. “The best way to protect the future of Israelis and Palestinians in their ancestral homelands, the ancestral homelands of Jews and Palestinians, is to work toward the solution: two states for two people.”
Others, who said they were not with an organized group, came to support Netanyahu’s right to speak in front of the United Nations, holding signs calling for people to stand with Israel against terrorism.
“What does it matter what our personal opinion is of a leader of another country? We didn’t have the power to vote for him, but we are supporting the state of Israel. It has a right to exist. It has a right to have a voice in the United Nations. You might like or not like the president of your country. That doesn’t mean you damn the whole thing,” one New Yorker said.
A pro-Palestinian protest also popped up on 46th Street and Second Avenue in response to Netanyahu being in New York City.
“As a New Yorker, I find it my responsibility to be here. He is in my city. The mayor said he is a criminal, a war criminal. The mayor said he is a war criminal, so why is he talking to the world as a war criminal when he should be in the ICC, the International Criminal Court,” Abu, a Palestinian New Yorker, told NY1.
Despite tension and inflammatory rhetoric, there were no reports of violence outside the United Nations on Thursday.