Lashing out at his country’s critics, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu angrily dismissed allegations of Israeli genocide in Gaza as “the biggest lie of the century” in a defiant speech to the U.N. General Assembly that asserted his nation’s right to wage war against Iran. Scores of delegates trooped out of the hall in protest. Netanyahu addressed the plenum after days of speeches by world leaders condemning Israel’s war in Gaza and accusing him of orchestrating a genocide against the Palestinian people. At times, the Israeli leader, facing a tough race for re-election next month, became emotional and indignant as he lectured his critics, among them New York’s mayor. Netanyahu, his voice rising in emphasis, said attacking Iran “was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make” and denounced as “moral cowards” a mass of delegates who walked out of the hall when he took the podium to speak. “In defending itself, Israel is also defending many of the countries whose delegates just left this hall,” Netanyahu said. “In fact, I want you to know that many of their leaders even thank us privately for taking out Iran’s nukes.” When Netanyahu walked to the rostrum, a mix of cheers, boos and mass walkouts erupted. Scores of delegates marched out and a majority of visible seats sat empty afterward. “Order in the hall, please,” General Assembly President Khalilur Rahman said repeatedly. “If there are any other moral cowards who have not yet left this hall, please do so now,” Netanyahu said. Netanyahu reminded the assembly of the scale of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in which Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people.
“This is equal to 40,000 innocent Americans slaughtered in less than 24 hours,” he said, or 16 times the death count of the 9/11 attacks that left nearly 3,000 people dead in New York and more in Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon. Netanyahu said the attack left Israel with no choice but to hit Hamas hard. While the war in Iran has been inconclusive and caused havoc on the global economy, Netanyahu insisted he had made the right decision. He thanked U.S. President Donald Trump for taking decisive action against Iran, and predicted Iran’s theocratic government would fall. Trump made a similar assertion at the outset of the war that began nearly seven months ago. Netanyahu, known for using visual aids during his General Assembly speeches, at one point held up a pager while reminding the audience of the Sept. 17, 2024, attack in which Israel remotely detonatedthousands of pagers that had been distributed to the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon. The pager attack wounded more than 3,000 people and killed 12. Netanyahu dismissed incidents of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank as a “handful of young juvenile delinquents” throwing stones, chopping down olive trees and lighting fires.“I can’t stand that. I won’t stand for vigilantism,” the prime minister said before accusing foreign leaders and the international press of distorting the scale of violence in the West Bank. Netanyahu also accused New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani of spreading lies about Israel and endangering Jewish New Yorkers with his criticism of the country’s military actions in Gaza. Before the prime minister arrived in New York, Mamdani called him a “war criminal” and pushed for his arrest. The mayor has acknowledged that New York does not have the authority to execute an International Criminal Court warrant but urged federal authorities to do so.
