New Delhi, Sept. 27 -- If there are any other moral cowards who haven't yet left this hall, please do so now." This is how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened his speech at the UN General Assembly as delegates started emptying the hall.
It was the outburst of a man who has been isolated - both at home and abroad. Even before Netanyahu took the plane to New York, with very few places he could go due to the ICC arrest warrant, he was aware of the kind of reception awaiting him. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani was calling for his arrest, and for more than a week, Americans, including Jews, were demonstrating against him outside the General Assembly. This was a very different reception from what an Israeli prime minister usually gets in New York, supposedly the most Jewish city in the US.
Inside the Assembly hall, the beleaguered prime minister's performance was far below par as he unsuccessfully tried to defend the indefensible. He called the Gaza genocide a "lie of the century", dismissing the settlers' violence against Palestinians in the West Bank as the work of 150 juvenile delinquents. Keeping an eye on the general election, which is just 33 days away, Netanyahu delivered an election speech aimed at an audience that many of his supporters wanted him to address. However, the combative speech about 'us' and 'others' failed to resonate with the domestic audience. Although his supporters praised him for confronting international criticism, his critics argued that Netanyahu spent too much of the speech attacking Israel's critics and missed an opportunity to present a more detailed case about Iran and Israel's international position.
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett accused him of missing "a historic opportunity to declare Qatar an enemy state", while Palestinian-Israeli politician Ahmad Tibi mocked him, posting a video of delegates leaving the room at the start of his speech. "'Voluntary migration' from the hall: yet another international achievement for Netanyahu," he posted on X, mocking a euphemism for expelling Palestinians from their land that is backed by many right-wing Israeli politicians.
Ahron Bregman, an Israeli security analyst and senior teaching fellow at King's College London, was more scathing, calling him toxic and saying that he has turned Israel into a pariah state. He said: "His speech was littered with lies. He played down the settlers' violence in the West Bank, saying that just a few Palestinians were killed by it, while in reality more than 80 were killed there this year." He is a brilliant orator but a serial liar, Bregman added.
Left-leaning Haaretz and centre-left Yedioth Ahronoth strongly criticised the address, saying that Netanyahu's remarks were filled with threats and accusations but failed to conceal the fundamental void at its core. They said the speech offered no clear vision for peace, an end to the war or a defined future for Israel, and that the empty seats in the hall underscored the country's growing diplomatic isolation.
The most worrying factor for the average Israeli is the growing isolation in the US. Netanyahu's combative performance at the UN cannot conceal a seismic change taking place in the US. Recent Pew Research Center surveys show that public support for Israel in the US has reached record lows, with roughly 60 per cent of American adults expressing an unfavourable view of the country. This is the reason why Democratic nominees opposed to Israeli policies in Gaza and AIPAC's political influence have won primaries despite enormous outside spending. The presence of prominent Hollywood figures, including Susan Sarandon and Hannah Einbinder, who joined pro-Palestinian protesters as Netanyahu spoke at the UN, shows how the Palestinian issue has entered mainstream American cultural politics.
With Netanyahu's ratings falling sharply in the US, especially among young Americans, any loud or combative speech is unlikely to reverse this trend. The UN event - both inside and outside - showed just how out of sync he is with reality: Israel is losing friends thick and fast.
Views expressed are personal. The writer is a senior journalist
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.