Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered one of his most combative speeches yet to the UN General Assembly on September 24, opening to a mass walkout of delegates as he took the podium and spending much of the rest of his remarks alternating between praise for Donald Trump and criticism of a long list of other countries and individuals.
'Moral cowards,' and worse
Dozens of delegations left the chamber as Netanyahu began speaking. He responded by calling them moral cowards and inviting anyone else who wanted to leave to do so as well. He rejected accusations of genocide in Gaza as the greatest lie of the century, described violence in the West Bank as the work of a handful of juvenile delinquents, and framed the years since October 7 as a seven front war Israel has been fighting on multiple sides at once.
Attacking friend and foe alike
Beyond adversaries like Iran's leadership, Qatar and Turkey, Netanyahu also took aim at countries generally counted among Israel's allies, including Britain and France, and criticized New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani directly by name. The mix of targets, friend and foe treated almost interchangeably, struck observers as one of the speech's more notable features.
The Trump relationship, front and center
Netanyahu reserved his warmest language for the United States, calling Trump Israel's greatest partner in what he described as a battle against barbarians, a line that drew applause from the American delegation seated alongside Israel's own. He highlighted joint missions flown by American and Israeli pilots over Iranian skies during the earlier conflict with Iran, and thanked Trump specifically for what he called decisive action against Tehran.
A visit that did not happen this year
The public warmth came with a quieter contrast. Last year, Netanyahu followed his UN speech with a stop at the White House. This year, no such meeting was arranged, with Trump in Washington instead to welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping. Officials on both sides pointed to the Jewish High Holy Days and Netanyahu's own ongoing reelection campaign back home as the reasons the schedules simply did not line up, leaving observers to decide for themselves whether that was purely logistics or a small sign of friction beneath an otherwise warm public alliance.
Praising an ally from the podium costs nothing. Skipping the visit that usually follows says something the speech itself never will.
Netanyahu closed with characteristic defiance, declaring that Israel will continue to win because it has no other choice, a line that summed up a speech built as much around who he chose to praise as around who he chose to confront.
