Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday in a speech that functioned less as diplomacy and more as a campaign rally broadcast internationally. Dozens of envoys walked out as he began. His own delegation applauded. The Israeli prime minister taunted departing diplomats as "moral cowards" and proceeded to attack targets ranging from Iran's leadership to the mayor of New York City. The core of the address was a defense of the US-Israel joint military operation against Iran's nuclear facilities. "Devastating Iran's nuclear facilities was hard, was very hard to do," Netanyahu said, calling it "one of the easiest decisions I've ever had to make as prime minister" and claiming inaction would have meant "we'd all be dead." Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking a day earlier, had called out the asymmetry directly: "The nuclear weapon is in Israel, but the inspectors are in Iran. Israel kills, but Iran is subject to sanctions." Netanyahu described Israel as fighting a "seven-front war" — Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen's Houthis, and Iraqi militias — while thanking Donald Trump as his greatest partner. He praised joint US-Israeli missions "over the skies of Iran" and credited bilateral cooperation for the return of hostages from Gaza. The US delegation joined the Israeli team in applause. Allies were not spared. Netanyahu attacked the United Kingdom and France for accusing Israel of colonialism and imposing limited sanctions on Israeli exports from the occupied West Bank. "They accuse Israel, tiny Israel, of colonialism — some colonialism. And who's accusing us? Among them are people in Britain and in France. For God's sakes, they invented the term," he said. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani received extended personal attention. Mamdani had previously said he would push for Netanyahu's arrest during his visit, and the prime minister used the UNGA podium to respond: "You tried to stop me from coming here. You tried to silence me. Well, you can't silence me." Mamdani called the accusations "baseless lies" meant to "sanitise his genocide of Palestinians." Outside the UN, Jewish Voice for Peace protested, and actress Susan Sarandon was among those detained. The speech arrived with an elephant in the room that nobody with enforcement power chose to address. The International Criminal Court issued a warrant in 2024 stating reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu was responsible for war crimes in Gaza, where over 73,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, 2023. Netanyahu attended freely. The Trump administration, meanwhile, denied a visa to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who was forced to address the assembly via prerecorded video from Ramallah. Ariel Cohen of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center captured the dynamic precisely: "That speech should be given at an election rally in Israel; this is who he's communicating to. He is making points that should be made to the Israeli audience for his political survival." Netanyahu made only a whirlwind stop in New York before rushing back to campaign ahead of Israel's October 27 election, with no meetings scheduled with top US leaders.
