After delegates walked out of the General Assembly, Israel’s prime minister stayed at the podium and delivered an unapologetic defense of his country, confronting accusations over Gaza while turning his fire on Qatar, Turkey and Iran.
Benjamin Netanyahu walked into the United Nations General Assembly knowing that a significant number of delegates had no intention of listening to him.
As the Israeli prime minister approached the podium, delegations began leaving the chamber. Netanyahu appeared entirely prepared for the spectacle. Rather than ignoring the walkout, he opened by addressing it directly.
“If there are any other moral cowards who haven’t yet left this hall, please do so now.”
That opening established the tone for everything that followed.
Netanyahu did not come to New York to deliver a conciliatory diplomatic speech. He came to defend Israel’s conduct during nearly three years of war, challenge some of the most serious accusations leveled against his government and confront countries he says have helped create an international campaign against the Jewish state.
Whatever you think of Netanyahu, it was a remarkable speech to watch. He stood before an institution where Israel has faced sustained criticism and, rather than soften his message for the room, challenged his critics directly.
The result was less a traditional diplomatic address than a prosecution of Israel’s case before a deeply divided international audience.
Netanyahu Confronts the Genocide Accusation
The most consequential portion of Netanyahu’s speech concerned Gaza.
Israel continues to face accusations that its military campaign amounts to genocide, allegations that have become central to the international debate surrounding the war. The International Court of Justice has issued provisional measures in the genocide case brought by South Africa, but those measures are not a final judgment on the merits of the genocide allegation. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres this week again emphasized the extraordinary scale of death and destruction in Gaza and called for compliance with international law and the court’s orders.
Netanyahu rejected the accusation outright.
“What genocidal regime gives a million polio vaccinations to the enemy’s population? What genocidal regime enables the distribution of 2 million tons of food into Gaza? That’s a ton for every person.”
Then he delivered his conclusion:
“Accusing Israel of genocide is the greatest lie of the century.”
Those are Netanyahu’s claims and his defense of Israel’s conduct. They will certainly not settle the argument internationally, particularly among governments and organizations that have reached dramatically different conclusions about the war.
But his broader argument was clear: Israel was attacked on October 7, 2023, and he believes the international conversation has increasingly separated everything that followed from the event that began this war.
That is something I have struggled to understand throughout this conflict.
There was no war between Israel and Gaza on October 6, 2023. The next morning, Hamas-led terrorists crossed into Israel, murdered civilians and took hostages back into Gaza. Israel responded with overwhelming military force.
You can debate that response. You can scrutinize individual operations, military decisions and Israeli government policy. You should. No government should be beyond scrutiny during wartime.
But Israel’s right to defend its population cannot simply disappear from the discussion.
That was the case Netanyahu was making to a room in which many delegations had already decided they would rather leave than hear him make it.
A Different Kind of War
Netanyahu then widened his argument beyond the battlefield.
Israel, he said, is fighting not only a military war but an information war over how the conflict is understood around the world.
“Our brave soldiers have been valiantly fighting a seven-front war, but there’s an eighth front to this war. It’s the war for truth.”
He singled out Qatar, accusing the Gulf state of spending enormous sums over decades to shape opinion through universities and media organizations, including Al Jazeera.
Qatar strongly disputes the Israeli portrayal of its role. Doha has positioned itself as a mediator in the conflict and says it has worked to secure ceasefires, humanitarian relief and the release of detainees and hostages. Qatar’s own address to the General Assembly this week presented almost the mirror image of Netanyahu’s argument, accusing Israel of devastating Gaza and failing to meet its obligations.
That contrast is worth understanding because it illustrates just how far apart the competing narratives have become.
Netanyahu sees Israel fighting a military campaign while simultaneously confronting a global political and information campaign designed to isolate it.
His opponents see Israel as using that argument to deflect criticism of the enormous civilian toll and destruction in Gaza.
Both arguments are now playing out not only on television screens and social media but inside the United Nations itself.
Netanyahu Turns on Erdogan
Netanyahu reserved some of his harshest language for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan has become one of Israel’s most outspoken international critics and has used his own appearance at the General Assembly to accuse Israel of genocide and call for greater international pressure on Jerusalem.
Netanyahu answered personally.
“Erdogan is a tyrant. He also hosts the Hamas terror chiefs. He has murdered thousands of Kurdish civilians. He denies the Armenian genocide. He jails journalists and opposition leaders.”
He also accused Turkey of occupying northern Cyprus and threatening Greece before turning to Erdogan’s rhetoric concerning Jerusalem.
“He says he’s going to be the ruler of Jerusalem. No, sir, you won’t. This is our country, our city, our eternal capital.”
This was Netanyahu at his most confrontational. There was virtually none of the careful diplomatic language normally associated with a General Assembly address.
He named his adversaries and attacked them directly.
And then he turned to Iran.
A Starlink Terminal and a Message to Tehran
This was probably the most theatrical moment of the speech.
Netanyahu brought a Starlink terminal with him to the podium while discussing Iran’s restrictions on communications and access to information. He described the device as a means for ordinary people to access information beyond government censorship.
Then he offered it to the Iranian delegation.
“Mr. President, I’m going to leave this device with you so you can give it to the Iranian delegation so when they inevitably defect, they too will be able to freely tell their story on social media.”
It was political theater, obviously.
But it was effective political theater.
Later, according to the account discussed during my broadcast, Israel’s U.N. ambassador attempted to deliver the device to the Iranian delegation. They declined it. Given the history of Israeli intelligence operations involving electronic devices, I cannot say I blame Iranian officials for being somewhat reluctant to accept electronics handed to them by the Israelis.
Netanyahu even invoked that history himself when he produced another prop: a pager, an unmistakable reference to the extraordinary 2024 operation in which communications devices used by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon.
The symbolism was impossible to miss.
His message to Iran and its allies was essentially this: Israel has demonstrated that it can reach into organizations and places once believed to be beyond its reach.
The Empty Seats Told Only Part of the Story
One of the most interesting aspects of the speech was the diplomatic choreography surrounding it.
Delegates walked out, but not everyone did. The United Arab Emirates remained, according to the account I reviewed during the live broadcast. Armenia also remained in the chamber. I found Armenia’s decision particularly interesting given the complicated history of relations between Armenia, Israel and Turkey.
Netanyahu argued that some governments publicly condemning Israel have privately benefited from Israeli actions against Iran.
“Israel is also defending many of the countries whose delegates just left this hall.”
He then made an even more striking assertion:
“Many of their leaders even thank us privately for taking out Iran’s nukes.”
That claim cannot be independently confirmed from the speech itself, and Netanyahu did not publicly identify the leaders he said had privately thanked him. But the argument reflects one of the central contradictions in Middle Eastern diplomacy: governments can fiercely criticize Israel in public while sharing serious security concerns about Iran and its regional network.
The public diplomacy and the private security relationships are not always the same thing.
That is one reason I paid particular attention to who stayed in the room as well as who left it.
Netanyahu’s Argument About Christians
Netanyahu also challenged the international community over the treatment of Christians in the Middle East.
“Their numbers are plummeting everywhere in the Middle East where they’re being persecuted and hounded except one place, my country, Israel, where the Christian community is growing, thriving, succeeding.”
He then pointed to Bethlehem, arguing that its Christian share of the population fell dramatically after the city came under Palestinian Authority administration.
The demographic history of Bethlehem is more complicated than a single cause; emigration, economic conditions, conflict and political changes have all contributed to the decline of its Christian population. But Netanyahu’s larger point was directed squarely at governments and activists who regularly condemn Israel while, in his view, devoting considerably less attention to the persecution of religious minorities elsewhere in the region.
It was another example of the structure running through the entire address: Netanyahu was not simply defending Israeli policy. He was accusing Israel’s critics of applying standards to the Jewish state that they do not consistently apply elsewhere.
The United Nations Put on Trial
That may ultimately be the most important thing about this speech.
Netanyahu was ostensibly standing before the United Nations to answer Israel’s critics. Instead, he attempted to reverse the proceeding and put the United Nations itself on trial.
And he was not alone.
Argentine President Javier Milei also used his appearance to deliver a sweeping criticism of the institution, accusing it of failing in its responsibilities on collective security and human rights. The broader General Assembly debate has exposed profound divisions over Gaza, Iran, the role of international institutions and the future of the international order itself.
That is why I think Netanyahu’s speech mattered beyond Israel.
The United Nations was created to provide a place where countries that profoundly disagree can still confront one another with words rather than weapons. There is value in that, even when the institution fails spectacularly to live up to its own ideals.
But there is also something revealing about watching diplomats walk out rather than remain in their seats and hear the leader of a country they condemn.
Netanyahu knew they were going to leave. He came anyway. And when they walked out, he delivered his argument to the empty seats. Whether those delegates agreed with him was never really the point. They obviously did not.
The point was that Israel’s prime minister wanted the world to hear his case directly: that Israel sees itself not as the aggressor portrayed by many of its critics, but as a country fighting enemies on several fronts while simultaneously fighting an international battle over the legitimacy of defending itself.
His critics will reject that characterization. Israel’s supporters will see the speech as an overdue confrontation with an institution they believe has treated the Jewish state unfairly.
But after watching the address, one thing was difficult to miss. Netanyahu did not arrive at the United Nations asking for its approval. He arrived prepared to challenge its judgment.
