Netanyahu Delivers a Rarity to the UN General Assembly--The Truth

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a barn burner of a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 24^th. He displayed grit and moral outrage in defense of Israel’s military actions in Gaza and Iran to defend its own people in a “battle against barbarians.” 

The main theme of his speech, which he repeated several times, was that Israel had to fight against the Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies and must win “because we have no other choice.”

At the outset, a number of delegates in the UN chamber staged a performative walkout as Prime Minister Netanyahu got ready to address the General Assembly. It did not faze him a bit. In fact, Mr. Netanyahu said that “any other moral cowards who haven’t yet left this hall--please do so now.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu came to the UN armed with the facts and ready to push back against the malicious falsehoods spread against Israel.

“To all those spreading these lies about my country and about our brave soldiers,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “whether they sit in this hall or in the office of the antisemitic mayor of New York, I say this: Shame on you! Shame on you for distorting the facts. Shame on you for inverting victim and aggressor. Shame on you for spitting in the face of truth.”

He branded the delegates who walked out rather than listen to the truth, as well as the Hamas-loving protesters blocking an intersection on First Avenue near the UN building, as hypocrites. “Where were you when the Iranian tyrants butchered and maimed tens of thousands of unarmed Iranian civilians?” Prime Minister Netanyahu asked. “When they butchered and maimed thousands of their own people? Where were you? Did you organize mass rallies? Hunger strikes? Did you protest outside the Iranian mission to the U.N.? Did you speak up, for that matter, for Christians persecuted in Iran and throughout the Middle East? No. No, you didn’t do that."

As Prime Minister Netanyahu promised, he went after the mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, whose blood libel and incitement of hatred against the Jewish state have made Jewish New Yorkers fearful for their safety. Mamdani has falsely accused Mr. Netanyahu of committing war crimes and genocide and urged that he be arrested based on the phony arrest warrant issued by the kangaroo International Criminal Court.

“Mr. Mamdani, you tried to stop me from coming here, you tried to silence me,” Israel’s prime minister said. “You can’t silence me. You can’t silence the truth.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu highlighted the fact that his small country--“this tiny patch of Earth” --is fighting terrorists who “try to murder our people” on multiple fronts. Israel is fighting against the Iranian regime itself, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria, the Houthis in Yemen, and the Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank. He proclaimed that “they all ganged up on us to wipe us off the face of the earth. They failed. Because, instead of collapsing, we delivered crippling blows to all of them. With our great American friends, we crushed Iran's Army, Navy, Air Force, and nuclear facilities. Israel hammered Hamas. We pummeled Hezbollah."

Mr. Netanyahu held up a pager as a reminder of what happened to Hezbollah fighters back in September 2024 when their pagers blew up as a result of an Israeli intelligence operation. The destruction of much of Hezbollah’s arsenal of ballistic missiles and rockets followed, together with the killing of its leaders. But Hezbollah is still desperately attacking Israelis with its remaining weapons.

As for the Iranian regime, Mr. Netanyahu said that devastating Iran’s nuclear facilities was hard to do but one of the easiest decisions he ever had to make as prime minister. He explained that “if we hadn’t done it, we’d all be dead. Israel and America acted together, not only to protect ourselves, but to save civilization.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu defiantly rejected the blood libel thrown around by Israel’s accusers that the Jewish state has committed “genocide” against the Palestinian people. “What genocidal regime gives a million polio vaccinations to the enemy’s population?” he asked. “What genocidal regime enables the distribution of two million tons of food into Gaza? That’s a ton for every person. Accusing Israel of genocide is the greatest lie of the century.” In fact, Prime Minister Netanyahu noted, the opposite is true. “Israel didn’t commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide,” he declared.

Mr. Netanyahu discussed the horrors of the Hamas-led terrorist attack that took place in Israel on October 7, 2023. “On that horrific day, thousands of Palestinian terrorists stormed into Israel from Gaza,” he said. “I want you to know there wasn’t a single Israeli in Gaza at the time. Not a civilian, not a soldier. Not one! It didn’t matter one bit. The Hamas terrorists committed the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. They went house to house shooting Israeli civilians point blank. They did so with fiendish glee. With sadistic joy they live-streamed as they murdered.”

The terrorists massacred, tortured, raped, and abducted innocent people, including babies, children, and Holocaust survivors alike. But it all backfired. “On that darkest of days, our enemies expected us to collapse,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said. “Well, we didn’t collapse. Instead, we rose and fought like lions.”

Israel’s prime minister delivered a stern message to the “antisemites of the world” who “want to terrify our people.” He said that the days are over “when Jews were defenseless victims marched to the slaughter. Today we have a state. Today we have an army. Today we have a people ready and willing to defend ourselves.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu also had a “message for Jews around the world.” He said, “Raise your heads high. Be proud. Be confident...Stand up.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a brave war time leader who would like nothing more than for Israelis to be able to live side by side with their neighbors in genuine peace and security. But his tiny country has been under constant attack by Jew haters who strive to annihilate the Jewish state and its Jewish inhabitants. Appeasement will give these “fanatic jihadists” what they want. Superior force is the only thing that will defeat them in a war that Israel must win to survive.

What the leaders of the free world need to wake up to is the fact that this is not just Israel’s fight alone. As Prime Minister Netanyahu declared in his General Assembly speech, “everyone else who wants to defend truth and justice, join us in standing up to the barbarians who threaten our common civilization.”

That is not what we are witnessing. however, except for the United States government under President Trump's leadership which is standing by Israel. The sharp rise of antisemitism around the world in response to Israel’s legitimate defense of its historic homeland and of its people is morally reprehensible. Yet, too many government leaders are either inciting it or doing nothing to stop it.