Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a defiant address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, directly confronting international criticism over his government’s military campaigns.
Speaking before an assembly marked by stark political division, Netanyahu used the global stage to defend Israel’s security operations, push back against domestic and foreign critics and emphasize that Israel will continue to defend its sovereignty regardless of international pressure.
The atmosphere inside the General Assembly hall turned dramatically tense moments before Netanyahu took the podium.
As the Israeli Prime Minister was announced, dozens of diplomatic delegations — representing numerous Arab, Islamic, and non-aligned nations — executed a coordinated, mass walkout in protest of Israel’s military actions.
…….Nonetheless, undeterred by the walkout, Netanyahu delivered an uncompromising speech focused heavily on national security and regional conflict.
Refusing to back down, he criticized certain public figures, Western nations and global institutions that have pushed for unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state or imposed diplomatic pressure on Israel, describing such moves as concessions to violence.
Mirroring themes from previous UN addresses, Netanyahu then praised the strength of the Israeli people and military, citing major progress in neutralizing regional threats from Hamas and allied Islamist militias while reiterating Israel’s firm commitment to countering Iran’s military ambitions.
Netanyahu further described the conflict as a crucial battle for the defense of democratic nations against extremist forces, arguing that Israel’s victory is essential for global stability.
Throughout his remarks, he also expressed gratitude toward foreign allies — most notably highlighting support from the United States and President Donald Trump’s historic initiatives — while maintaining that Israel would ultimately act independently whenever necessary to protect its citizens.
Excerpts from transcript:
Before I begin, just a quick announcement:
If there are any other moral cowards who haven’t yet left this hall—please do so now. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Fourteen years ago, I stood on this podium, and I drew a red line.
I vowed to prevent Iran’s murderous dictatorship from developing atomic bombs, nuclear weapons aimed at destroying Israel, nuclear weapons that could threaten the entire world.
That’s exactly what we did.
Now let me say something that might surprise you.
Devastating Iran’s nuclear facilities was hard. It was very hard to do. But for me, it was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make as prime minister. Because if we hadn’t done it, we’d all be dead.
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!
……..On June 5, 1967, Israel was surrounded by enemies who openly swore to destroy us.
We weren’t then in Judea Samaria, the heart of the historic homeland of the Jewish people. We weren’t in Gaza. We weren’t on the Golan Heights.
And Mr. al-Sharaa, you should know the Jews have been on the Golan Heights since the days of Moses. You can read it in the Bible.
At that time, on the eve of the Six-Day War in 1967, we weren’t in any of these places. We were on a tiny sliver of land—we still are—that is equal to about one third of one percent of the landmass of the entire Arab world.
Yet they accuse Israel of colonialism. Some 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.
Yet at the time, on this tiny patch of Earth, no West Bank, no Gaza, no Golan Heights, just the very survival of this one and only Jewish state, because this is what this conflict is about. It’s not about territories; it’s about a Jewish state at any boundaries. And yet, at the time, we were threatened with annihilation by three Arab armies that were about to invade us.
You know what Israelis were doing at the time? They were digging mass graves in preparation of thousands and thousands of casualties. In preparation to bury our dead.
At the time, I was an Israeli high school student in Philadelphia.
Five days before the war broke out, I flew back to Israel.
I found a country in total blackout.
Israel braced for impact.
I flew back to see my brother Jonathan, Yoni.
He was a 21-year-old paratroop officer. And like the rest of the army, his unit was already mobilized. I went to find him. I was told the paratroops are in camps in the orchards, the orange groves around Ramle. So I went there, and I asked some soldiers, “Do you know where Yoni Netanyahu is?” “No.” Then one guy said, “Oh, you mean the young guy? Yeah, he’s in the next grove.”
So I went there, and suddenly, at the end of a long row of trees, I saw my brother.
He was absolutely shocked to see me.
“Bibi,” he said, “what are you doing here?”
We ran, we hugged each other.
Over a cup of makeshift military coffee, I asked him the question that was on my mind, the question that was on everybody’s mind.
“So, Yoni,” I said, “what’s going to happen?”
He paused. And then he said something I’ll never forget.
“We’re going to win,” he said. “We have no other choice.”
……..At no time was this demonstrated more clearly than on Oct. 7, 2023—the darkest day in Israel’s history.
On that horrific day, thousands of Palestinian terrorists stormed into Israel from Gaza.
I want you to know there wasn’t a single Israeli in Gaza at the time. Not a civilian, not a soldier. Not one!
It didn’t matter one bit.
The Hamas terrorists committed the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
They went house to house, shooting Israeli civilians point-blank. They did so with fiendish glee. With sadistic joy, they live-streamed as they murdered.
And who did they murder? The very Israelis—their neighbors—who gave them jobs, who picked up Palestinian children at the Gaza border and drove them to Israeli hospitals for cancer treatment, and then brought them back.
Can you imagine such monstrosity?
These Hamas monsters, they slaughtered Holocaust survivors. They burned babies alive in front of their parents. They beheaded our men. They brutally raped our women, and then they murdered them.
Altogether, they slaughtered 1,200 Israelis that day.
…….Seven fronts: Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran, militias in Iraq, militias in Syria, Palestinian terrorists in Judea Samaria. They all ganged up on us to wipe us off the face of the Earth.
They failed.
Because instead of collapsing, we delivered crippling blows to all of them.
With our great American friends, we crushed Iran’s army, navy, air force and nuclear facilities.
Israel hammered Hamas. We pummeled Hezbollah.
Remember the beepers? Well, I can tell you this: Hezbollah certainly remembers them.
Guess what happened to the bulk of Hezbollah’s vast arsenal of 150,000 ballistic missiles and rockets, all aimed at our civilians?
They’re gone.
Hezbollah’s leaders—dead. Their spirit—broken.
The arch-terrorists, the worst mass murderers on Earth, not only killing Israelis, killing Americans, killing Brits, killing citizens of dozens of countries—Khamenei, Dief, Sinwar, Haniyeh and Nasrallah—and thousands of other terrorists who sought to destroy us—they’re all gone too.
The remaining terrorists desperately try to regroup. Every day they try to murder our people.
…….In this battle against the barbarians, we’ve had no greater partner than President Trump.
I thank him for his bold leadership. He boldly confronted an enormous danger to America, Israel and the world.
Decades ago, he understood that if left unchallenged, the fanatic ayatollahs who chant “Death to America! Death to Israel!” would eventually carry out their mad fantasies.
So Israel and America acted together not only to protect ourselves, but to save civilization.
Brave American pilots alongside brave Israeli pilots flew joint missions over the skies of Iran.
America and Israel also worked together to bring back our remaining hostages.
We brought back every last one of them.
…….So to all those spreading these lies about my country and about our brave soldiers, whether they sit in this hall or in the office of the antisemitic mayor of New York City, I say this:
Shame on you.
Shame on you for distorting the facts.
Shame on you for inverting victim and aggressor.
Shame on you for spitting in the face of truth.
Mr. Mamdani, since you were elected mayor of this city, many Jews no longer feel safe in New York. They talk to me. They tell me. This isn’t the city we remember. It changed so quickly.
It’s no wonder.
You praised criminals convicted of supporting Hamas.
You count as friends people like Hassan Piker, who said America deserved 9/11.
“America deserved 9/11.” Some friends you have.
You invite into your home a Palestinian journalist who filmed Hamas terrorists beating and torturing Israeli hostages, and later admitted that he refused to publish the videos in order to protect—you guessed it—the terrorists!
Your wife liked a post praising the Oct. 7 massacre.
She liked another post saying Tel Aviv shouldn’t exist.
You refused to condemn any of that.
You falsely and repeatedly accuse Israel of genocide.
Mr. Mamdani, you tried to stop me from coming here; you tried to silence me. You can’t silence me. You can’t silence the truth.
And here’s the simple truth.
Israel didn’t commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide.
And that’s exactly what Mr. Mamdani’s Hamas buddies would have done to us had we not stopped them. They would have killed every last one of us.
The lies you and other antisemites spread about the Jews and the Jewish state have real consequences.
In New York, Jews are threatened on the way to synagogue. Jews have been stabbed in the streets. Jews are demonized. They’re targeted simply for being Jews.
Jews have been murdered in Sydney, Manchester, Montreal, Boulder, Colo.
They’ve been attacked in Los Angeles, London, Paris, Berlin, Washington, D.C.
The antisemites of the world want to terrify our people.
I have news for them.
The days when Jews were defenseless victims marched to the slaughter, those days are over!
……..Ladies and gentlemen,
Over the centuries, the tyrannies that tried to destroy us failed time and again.
God willing, they’ll continue to fail.
If we muster our courage, if we steel our resolve, we will continue to win.
As the Bible says, netzach Yisrael lo yeshaker, the eternity of Israel will not falter.
And the reason is simple.
We have no other choice.
Thank you all.
Chag Sameach le’Am Yisrael.”
Good for him. He didn’t pull punches and he let everyone know that Israel will never apologize for defending itself.
If Mamdani and the terrorist mob in the UN thought that Netanyahu would let their malfeasance go, they were mistaken.
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