Netanyahu uses UN address to highlight Trump ties — and harangue everyone else

Por Giselle Ruhiyyih Ewing — POLITICOPolitics » POLITICO

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces a critical election next month, emphasized his close ties with President Donald Trump during his speech to the United Nations on Thursday while trashing a long list of real and perceived enemies.

Israel has “no greater partner than President Trump,” Netanyahu said during the U.N. General Assembly’s annual gathering of world leaders, thanking his American counterpart for “his bold leadership.”

Netanyahu delivered the kind words for Trump despite growing tensions between the Israeli government and the Trump administration over the Iran war, the Gaza conflict and settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. It also comes as there are growing frustrations within some Republican circles over the U.S. relationship with Israel.

Just last week, Vice President JD Vance, who privately opposed the U.S. and Israel war on Iran, stressed that the U.S. must not let its foreign policy be “subservient to the State of Israel.” And Trump — who called his Israeli counterpart “crazy” in an explosive phone call a few months ago — has not explicitly endorsed Netanyahu for reelection.

Still, the shout-out to Trump was a sign of how much value Netanyahu places on the relationship with the president at a time when Israel is increasingly isolated on the global stage and many Israeli voters blame Netanyahu for it.

The Israeli leader struck a defiant tone through much of the speech, delivering broadsides to everyone from European leaders to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Netanyahu berated Britain and France for leading a cohort of U.S. allies to impose trade sanctions on products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank. He painted them as hypocrites for accusing Israel of colonialism when they “invented the term.” (The Trump administration has remained unusually quiet about the sanctions decision.)

Netanyahu also said the issue of Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians and their property received too much international attention and downplayed the number of deaths at the hands of settlers. He spoke directly to international leaders worried about such violence, saying, “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Many of the settlers are stalwart supporters of Netanyahu’s right-wing government.

But Netanyahu, whose government has green-lit the expansion of settlements, also sought to temper his comments by saying he “won’t stand for vigilantism” by the settlers.

As Netanyahu began to speak, many delegations present in the U.N. hall walked out, as has happened before in recent years amid growing outrage over Israeli actions in Gaza. He accused them of hypocrisy as well, calling them “moral cowards” and claiming that many of those countries’ leaders had privately thanked him for targeting Iran’s nuclear program.

Netanyahu criticized Qatar, a wealthy but small Arab country that has sought to position itself as a mediator between Washington and Tehran in the Iran war, and Turkey, whose relationship with Israel has deteriorated in recent years. Netanyahu accused the two countries of spreading “antisemitic lies.”

He also accused New York Mayor Mamdani of antisemitism — and of being “buddies” with Hamas. Mamdani, who supports Palestinian statehood and had vowed during his campaign to follow through on an International Criminal Court warrant for the Israeli leader’s arrest before backtracking, has been a repeated target of Netanyahu’s ire.

Another Netanyahu target was Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa.

In his Wednesday speech to the U.N. gathering, Sharaa criticized Israel for its occupation of southern Syria and said the Golan Heights would “remain a Syrian land.”

Netanyahu responded Thursday that “Jews have been in the Golan Heights since the days of Moses” and encouraged the Syrian leader to pick up a Bible.

Nahal Toosi contributed to this report.

Fonte: POLITICOPolitics » POLITICO