When he takes the stage at the UN on Thursday, Benjamin Netanyahu will deliver a familiar message of defiance even as protests and international condemnation leave the Israeli leader in growing isolation. Netanyahu is facing his toughest re-election challenge in a political career spanning decades with three ongoing conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, and a growing campaign of violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Internationally, Israel is facing growing condemnation.
The UK, France and Canada are planning to sanction Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and the British foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, has accused Israeli settlers of committing ethnic cleansing of Palestinian communities. And the US is in the midst of a historic shift in public opinion against Israel, with 62% of respondents telling Pew in July they had a negative opinion of Netanyahu’s government, and 60% of American Jews in a poll released this week hoping he is voted out in October. Protests are expected both in the UN’s general assembly hall and on the streets of New York City, where mayor Zohran Mamdani has tempered his earlier promises to arrest Netanyahu as a war criminal to assure demonstrators this week that he would protect their “right to [protest] in this city”.
Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, defended Netanyahu’s government in a telephone interview before this week’s speech seeking to cast criticism of Israel’s actions as the product of misinformation and bias. We were under the spotlight, and for us, I think, we are proud of our achievements.” “At the same time, we will work harder to improve the image of Israel, and we know there’s a campaign against us,” he added. Anger at Netanyahu will be on full display in New York City on Thursday, where several protests have been scheduled, including one from Bryant Park in midtown Manhattan to the UN headquarters in Turtle Bay to “reject war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu and the genocidal Zionist project”.
She described a “mainstreaming” of public opinion that “Americans do not want to be supporting Israel’s genocide. We do not want to be supporting Israel’s apartheid. We do not want to be arming Israel or supporting Israel.” And Palestinian representatives are calling for diplomatic missions to bring staff for a planned walkout of Netanyahu’s speech to “send a clear message to Netanyahu and his government that no one is willing to aid, abet, or be complicit in its genocide and war crimes and illegal occupation, which all peace-loving states and peoples demand must come to an end”.
But in Danon’s telling, Israel’s problem was largely one of public relations rather than of policy, and he cited a “wave of misinformation” as the reason for the precipitous shift in polling. Netanyahu would use his speech to “highlight Israel’s achievements”, he said, and to lay out “what still should be done, and how should we verify that we actually achieve the goals of the war?” He did not elaborate on those specific measures before the speech, but the White House and US policymakers will be listening as they calibrate their message to voters – as well as the backlash of public anger – ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. Netanyahu is expected to deliver a hardline message aimed not just at world leaders, but also to his own electorate in Israel ahead of the October elections.
Trump will be in Washington DC to host the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, and Netanyahu has cited Israel’s electoral campaign and the holiday of Sukkot as his reason to head home quickly after the speech. A Trump administration official said Netanyahu’s delegation had sought a high-level meeting during the visit but none was organised. There are also no plans to meet congressional leaders, Danon said.
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