In the immediate aftermath of October 7, it quickly became apparent that any hope of the world uniting in condemnation of Hamas and support for Israel was at best a naive, fanciful notion, even before the IDF had taken any retaliatory action.
Still, who could have imagined that three years on the Jewish state would have to face the levels of hostility and sheer hate directed towards it at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York last week?
For the anti-Israel brigade among the assembled diplomats, there was only one bogeyman to serve as the target of their ire: Benjamin Netanyahu.
But the seething cauldron of fury that the prime minister found in the Big Apple only played to his strengths, according to those around him.
“The boss is energised,” a source in Netanyahu’s inner circle told the JC as the prime minister arrived the day before Succot.
“The more pressure he faces, the stronger he is. Vintage Bibi.”
The source promised the “delivery of his life” as Netanyahu prepared to step out onto the green marble podium and address the UNGA.
There were cries of “Am Yisrael Chai” from his supporters, but also an orchestrated walkout ten minutes before the speech.
Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia were among the protesting nations, many of whom had taken up their maximum allocation of six delegates simply to add to the dramatic impact of the number leaving hall.
Far from being knocked off his stride, Netanyahu responded with customary sang froid. “If there are any other moral cowards who haven’t left the hall, please do so now,” he said.
What followed was a sweeping defence of the conduct of the war against Hamas and an attack on governments, international institutions and political figures he accused of distorting Israel’s record.
In a coup de théâtre, Netanyahu held up a pager as a reminder of the operation that devastated Hezbollah’s ranks in September 2004.
“You remember the beepers?” Netanyahu asked, pausing for effect. “Well, I can tell you this: Hezbollah certainly remembers them.”
Later he held up a Starlink communications device, the type used by Iranian dissidents to bypass the Islamic Republic’s internet blackout.
Brandishing the prop, Netanyahu said: “This is a communication tool that enables people to access the truth – and that is what the Iranian regime fears. It spends billions to censor the internet.
“That allows people to access truth, to exercise choice and to exercise freedom of thought and freedom of speech.”
He added mischievously: “I am leaving this device for the Iranian delegation; when they inevitably defect, they will be able to tell their story on social media.”
What a contrast with the handshake British foreign secretary Ed Miliband shared with his Tehran opposite number Abbas Araghchi, much to the dismay of Iranian dissidents.
Next, Netanyahu turned his attention to the anti-Israel demonstrators gathered on the streets of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s New York.
“To the protesters outside, to the hypocritical delegates who left this hall, I ask: where were you when the Iranian tyrants butchered and maimed tens of thousands of unarmed Iranian civilians?
“Did you organise mass rallies? Hunger strikes? Did you protest outside the Iranian mission to the UN?”
The Israeli prime minister fired his invective at leaders of nation states he claimed were two-faced: “Now, you want to hear the ultimate irony?
“In defending itself, Israel is also defending many of the countries whose delegates just left this hall!
“In fact, I want you to know that many of their leaders even thank us privately for taking out Iran’s nukes. It’s hard to imagine more mind-blowing hypocrisy, but that’s exactly what it is.”
Nor was the questionable moral leadership of Europe’s former imperial powers spared as he called out those who “accuse Israel of colonialism”.
“And who’s accusing us? Among them are people in Britain and in France. For God’s sake, they invented the term. Their colonies braced the entire globe. Colonialism. Give us a break. Another lie.”
An insider told the JC that the jibe at “colonialism” was especially aimed at Miliband after his announcement of sanctions targeting the West Bank.
But Netanyahu also offered a note of hope.
“The power of the people will overcome the people in power. One day, and it may not be far away, the Iranian people will be free.”
Netanyahu’s most emphatic language was reserved for accusations that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.
“Accusing Israel of genocide is the greatest lie of the century,” he told the assembly.
Netanyahu pointed to vaccinations, food deliveries and Israeli efforts to warn Palestinian civilians away from combat areas as evidence for his argument.
“What genocidal regime gives a million polio vaccinations to the enemy’s population?” he asked. “What genocidal regime enables the distribution of two million tonnes of food into Gaza?
“We’ve taken innumerable steps to protect the civilian population.
“Is this genocide? Of course not. It’s the opposite of genocide.”
Later, he distilled the argument still further: “Israel didn’t commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide.”
The speech acknowledged the troubling issue central of settler violence in the West Bank.
Netanyahu said: “I can’t stand that. I won’t stand for vigilantism. We are a country of law.”
But he argued that international discussion had radically distorted the scale of settler violence to become “an obsession” that focused on crimes committed by a small number of settlers while overlooking what he characterised as thousands of attempted attacks on Israeli families in the West Bank.
The combative speech was fuelled by Netanyahu’s memories of his elder brother Yonatan, who was killed commanding the Israeli force during the 1976 Entebbe hostages rescue.
The prime minister “feels the spirit of his brother with him”, said a source close to Netanyahu.
On the podium, he recalled meeting Yonatan before an earlier war and asking what was going to happen.
“We’re going to win,” Netanyahu recalled his brother replying. “We have no other choice.”
That driving imperative of national survival was the keynote of the UN address.
“We will continue to defend our state,” he said. “We will continue to win because we have no other choice.”
For those around Netanyahu, that was the crucial message. “Israel must win because we have no choice,” were the very words the source had shared with the JC before the speech.
Any discussion of the UN must face the question of why Israel bothers to turn up at all.
One insider described the atmosphere bluntly. “You feel this antisemitism when you walk around in the UN, you feel the sentiment,” he said, describing Security Council sessions lasting hours in which Israel can face sustained criticism from member states.
“I think it’s institutional antisemitism. It’s a platform to attack Israel.”
The assessment is strongly held by Israeli officials but vigorously contested by the UN and many member states.
Yet the speeches from the General Assembly podium are only the public face of UNGA week.
“It’s not really the juicy part of what’s happening at the UN,” explained Jonathan Harounoff, who until recently served as international spokesman for Israel’s mission to the UN. “It’s what’s happening in the side events and the bilaterals and the trilaterals and the multilaterals – sometimes behind closed doors.”
Israel has no intention of walking away from these private discussions.
Harounoff acknowledged the contradiction at the heart of Israel’s relationship with the institution: abandoning the UN would mean surrendering the very platform on which Israel can challenge its critics.
“I think it would be a much darker place if Israel was absent and member states were bashing Israel with Israel not having the ability to defend itself using the global platform of the United Nations,” he said.
“The United Nations is still the biggest platform in the world for world leaders to engage with each other and make their voice heard.”
There may be protests outside. There may be empty seats inside. And there will be denunciations of Israel long after Netanyahu leaves New York.
But none of that, those around Netanyahu insist, has put the Israeli prime minister on the defensive.
And there may be still another legacy to Netanyahu’s address last week.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon later explained the prime minister had “set the record straight. Israel will not apologise for defending its citizens, nor will it be deterred by those who seek to turn the aggressor into the victim and the victim into the accused.”
But Danon also commented on a photograph left behind by members of the Iranian delegation of Qassem Soleimani, the regime military leader assassinated by the US in January 2020. “It’s understandable why they left a photo of a former general. Photos are about all they have left of their senior generals.”
After Netanyahu’s warnings to Tehran, Danon’s barbed line hinted at the possibility of what may lie ahead in future operations against Iran amid mounting speculation and with Israelis due to go to the polls on October 27. Watch this space.
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