Mass Protest Planned Against Netanyahu’s UN Speech in NYC Thursday

Por Shireen Akram-Boshar — Truthout

Netanyahu is attempting to “insult and demean the international system” with his visit, one activist said.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to arrive in New York City on Thursday for the UN General Assembly – where he is expected to defend his warmongering in Iran and Gaza in a speech during the afternoon.

Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has presided over the nearly three-year-long genocide in Gaza – which has killed at least 75,000 Palestinians, according to conservative estimates – while pursuing permanent war on states across the region and full annexation of the occupied West Bank.

The prime minister had originally planned to visit the U.S. for several days, but he has decided to cut his visit short by staying in New York City only for a few hours before flying out Thursday evening after his speech at the UN.

Activist organizations across New York City – led by the Palestinian Youth Movement, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Democratic Socialists of America, among others – have planned a mass demonstration to confront Netanyahu on Thursday outside of the UN headquarters.

Taher Dahleh, an organizer from the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), told Truthout that Netanyahu is attempting to “insult and demean the international system and the rest of the states of the world” through his visit, while demonstrating that Israel can leverage forums like the UN’s General Assembly for its own interests and remain welcomed by the U.S.

But it cannot be ignored that Netanyahu has presided over “three years of genocide and spiraling regional war which has hit countries from Lebanon to Iran, Yemen to Iraq, in addition to devastating the Palestinian people, particularly in Gaza,” Dahleh stated.

In November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, charging him with war crimes, including “starvation as a method of warfare” and crimes against humanity committed during the war on Gaza since October 2023.

The 125 member states of the ICC are expected to abide by the arrest warrant and hand Netanyahu over to the ICC if he arrives in their territory.

But the Trump administration has ridiculed the ICC as “illegitimate” and “politicized,” and has worked to undermine the court. As far back as 2020, Trump began to target ICC members with sanctions, freezing their assets and threatening their livelihoods. According to a Wall Street Journal report on Sunday, the Trump administration is currently looking to announce sanctions against the ICC as a whole.

Others, however, have stated that the ICC has not gone far enough. In response to the 2024 sanctions, Palestinian legal organization Al-Haq emphasized that Netanyahu and Israel’s crimes “did not begin on 8 October 2023” but have continued for much longer – with the expansion of settlements in the West Bank having taken place over decades, and the siege of Gaza beginning in 2007, to name only a few examples.

Netanyahu has also directly overseen numerous war crimes in his nearly 20-year tenure as Israeli prime minister, including the 2012 war on Gaza (“Operation Pillar of Defense”), which killed at least 150 Palestinians; the 2014 war on Gaza (“Operation Protective Edge”), which killed over 2,250 Palestinians in the course of 50 days; and the 2021 war on Gaza, which killed over 250 Palestinians. The current genocide, with a death toll of 75,000 in Gaza and nearly 9,000 in Lebanon since 2023, surpasses these numbers, but is nonetheless a continuation of these crimes.

The Israeli prime minister is currently in the middle of an election campaign where he has deployed anti-Arab fearmongering and repeatedly referenced his 2024 pager attacks on Lebanon – which witnessed mass casualties and has been deemed a war crime – as a key example of his military and security prowess.

In his policy of permanent war, Netanyahu has pursued war with Iran for decades, before finally gaining US approval and launching the 2025 war on Iran and the joint 2026 US-Israeli war on Iran that has lasted the better part of this year.

Dahleh emphasized the Trump administration’s complicity in shielding Netanyahu. “Despite the fact that Trump is saying he can’t meet with Netanyahu because it’s just too logistically difficult, it shouldn’t be lost on anyone that if it wasn’t for the United States government, not only would the genocide have not been able to rage on in the way that it has, but Netanyahu would likely be appearing before the International Criminal Court, and the ministers like Smotrich and Ben Gvir and Yoav Gallant who have orchestrated this along with him.”

Last year, Netanyahu declared at the UN General Assembly that Israel must “finish the job” in Gaza, while making claims about his concern for the remaining Israeli hostages. The UN hall was largely empty as over 100 diplomats walked out in protest and several thousand protestors demonstrated outside, while the Israel army forced Palestinians in Gaza to listen to his speech by broadcasting it over loudspeakers. This year, Netanyahu will have to jump through even more rhetorical hoops after Haaretz reported that he had been warned repeatedly about Hamas’s October 7th attack, and few remain convinced that his priority throughout the war lay in returning hostages.

Dahleh credited the movement in solidarity with Palestine and last year’s mass protest against Netanyahu for forcing Netanyahu to cut his visit short this year. He stressed that mass demonstrations are crucial in expressing outrage at Israel and the U.S.’s policies in Palestine and across the Middle East. Mass turnout at Thursday’s demonstration, if large enough, could make it “so that next year there is no Netanyahu or any Israeli representative at the UN.”

Dahleh also spoke about the need for politicians to support these protests. Mamdani, he said, has been “critical of Netanyahu and of the Israeli genocide in Palestine. Protest organizers and people of conscience in New York City are hoping that the mayor continues the strong stance that he’s taken by taking at least some form of continued public action at Netanyahu. We hope to see left-wing candidates like Darializa [Avila Chevalier] and [state assembly member] Claire Valdez participating in these protests, too.”

During his 2025 mayoral campaign, Mamdani stated that he would have Netanyahu arrested were he to visit New York City. But more recently, in July, Mamdani admitted that he lacked the authority to enforce an ICC arrest warrant.

“At the level of rhetoric and speech, [Mamdani’s previous comments on Netanyahu and Israel] are some of the strongest rhetoric that a politician has said against Israeli aggression and genocide in Gaza,” Dahleh remarked.

“I think the community would like to see him continue to think about the standing of Palestinians in NYC, many of whom have relatives who are bearing the brunt of this violence on a daily basis. So whether that’s people in places like Beit Hanina and Turmusayya who are having their homes and lands usurped and destroyed by settlers, or whether it’s Palestinians who have come from Gaza within the last three years seeking refuge and who still have family that are living under starvation and bombs and tents. The mayor might not have the ability to actually prosecute Netanyahu, but he needs to look into every single practical action that can be taken against this city’s complicity in not just the genocide but in supporting Zionism and Israel’s settler movement.”

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Shireen Akram-Boshar is a socialist writer, editor and Middle East/North Africa solidarity activist.

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Fonte: Truthout