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Netanyahu Faces an UNGA Walkout (Again)

The Israeli prime minister defended his country’s actions in Gaza and Iran—and lashed out at Mamdani.

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report. It’s Thursday, which means we are back to our regular weekly programming, but we have more news from another busy day at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York City.

Here’s what’s on tap for the day: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers his UNGA speech, U.S. President Donald Trump hosts Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington, and Denmark’s military intelligence service issues a chilling warning about Russia.

Netanyahu’s Defiance

For the second year in a row, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced a mass walkout at UNGA. As Netanyahu took the stage for his speech on Thursday, more than 100 U.N. delegates left their seats and exited the assembly hall.

“If there are any other moral cowards who haven’t yet left this hall, please do so now,” Netanyahu began.

He then referenced his first-ever speech to the gathering 14 years ago, when he said the world must prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. “That’s exactly what we did,” he said. “It was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make as prime minister, because if I hadn’t done it, we’d all be dead.” Netanyahu characterized Israel’s actions against Iran as “defending many of the countries whose delegates just left this room.”

He also recounted the death of his older brother Yonatan, who was killed in action during Operation Entebbe, a 1976 mission by Israel Defense Forces commandos to rescue Jewish hostages who were being held in Entebbe, Uganda, after their flight from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked by Palestinian and German militants.

Netanyahu referenced his brother several times throughout the speech, but he repeatedly came back to one line he said his brother told him: “We’re going to win, because we have no other choice.”

Defender. The Israeli prime minister once again defended Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, calling the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that prompted it the “darkest day in Israel’s history” and praising Israel’s military response. “We didn’t collapse. Instead, we rose and fought like lions,” he said, outlining the “seven fronts” where the Israeli military is now fighting in the region, including in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. “Do you know any other country the size of New Jersey capable of fighting a seven-front war?” he asked.

Like many world leaders, Netanyahu’s speeches at the multilateral institution—which Israel increasingly expresses great disdain for—are always aimed at least partly at his domestic audience, but that was even more so the case this year, with just over a month to go before Israelis head to the polls for a referendum on his government.

In his remarks, he presented himself as a defender of Israel. “We have no other country. It is a privilege to defend it,” he said, telling all the Israelis killed in the war that “your sacrifice will not be in vain.” And he praised Trump, saying Israel had “no greater partner” and that the two leaders launched the war against Iran “not only to protect ourselves, but to save civilization.”

‘Mr. Mamdani.’ Yet in addition to denouncing Iran, Hamas, and other longtime enemies, Netanyahu also chose to focus some of his ire on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has called Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide and said he would have the New York Police Department arrest Netanyahu when he visited the city—only to later conclude that was not legally possible.

“Mr. Mamdani, since you were elected mayor of this city, many Jews no longer feel safe in New York,” Netanyahu said, citing threats against Jews in New York “on the way to the synagogue.”

“Israel didn’t commit genocide, Israel prevented genocide,” he added. “That’s exactly what Mr. Mamdani’s Hamas buddies would have done to us.”

‘A malicious colonial scheme.’ Earlier in the day, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas used his speech—like Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian the day before—to criticize both the United States and Israel. Abbas addressed the gathering virtually for the second consecutive year, saying in prepared video remarks that the Palestinian delegation was denied U.S. visas again.

“We reject these unlawful punitive measures, and we reject the accusations and justifications on which they were based,” he said. “Denying the Palestinian delegation access to the U.N. headquarters is a violation of the United States’ obligation as the host country,” he added.

Abbas also criticized Israel’s continued strikes in Gaza, which he called “a genocidal war that has created an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe” as well as the actions of Israeli settlers in the West Bank. “The danger is no longer limited to undermining the two-state solution and preventing the realization of the Palestinian state. It has now come to threaten the very life and existence of the Palestinian people on their homeland,” he said. “What is taking place in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem are not isolated incidents, but rather a malicious colonial scheme aimed at making the lives of Palestinians more difficult in their homeland and forcing them to leave it.”

Let’s Get Personnel

Eight U.S. Navy personnel who were part of the USS Abraham Lincoln’s strike group attempted suicide during the carrier’s 286 continuous days at sea, according to a letter by acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao to Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Tuesday. The letter was in response to congressional concerns about the mental health of the crew, who set a modern record for continuous time at sea without a port call due to Trump’s decision to extend the ship’s deployment in the Middle East.

“The men and women of Carrier Strike Group THREE have demonstrated exceptional resolve under demanding conditions,” Cao wrote. “Operational decisions to extend deployments are never made lightly.” During that deployment, personnel aboard the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier reported a slew of challenges, including food shortages and sewage issues, that negatively impacted their well-being.

Yet Trump has dismissed such concerns. When asked last month whether he was concerned about the crew’s mental health and the length of the deployment, Trump responded: “No. No. No. Not nearly long enough.”—Alexandra Sharp

On the Button

What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.

New deal? At UNGA, Iran furnished the United States with a proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days and resume negotiations on a permanent deal “if certain conditions are met,” Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi told a small group of reporters on the sidelines of the gathering.

“The conditions we have asked the U.S. to meet is nothing new, nothing more than what was already in the Islamabad agreement, which was signed by the U.S. president,” he said. “So, if anything they committed themselves in the MOU [memorandum of understanding] is in fact implemented in practice, the conditions that we have set are met, then the strait will be open and talks will be restarted to get to the final deal.”

Araghchi said they’d introduced the new plan to the Trump administration via “intermediaries” and that Iran is waiting for a response from the U.S. side, adding that the seven-day clock would begin “the day after the U.S. accepts this plan.”

He declined to put a deadline on a response from Washington, saying Tehran was “not in a hurry