In blistering UN speech, Netanyahu says Israel seeks peace but will fight until victory
Shortly before huge IDF strike on Hezbollah HQ, PM says Israel will keep hitting terror group; calls UN ‘swamp of antisemitic bile,’ tells world to choose between Israel and Iran
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold signs as he addresses the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, September 27, 2024.
Israel will continue striking Hezbollah in Lebanon until it achieves its goals, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday in a fiery address to the United Nations, a short while before the Israeli Air Force struck Hezbollah’s main headquarters in the Lebanese capital of Beirut.
“We won’t rest until our citizens return safely to our homes,” said the premier, the day after a public disagreement with the United States and France over a plan for a ceasefire in Lebanon.
“We will continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are attained,” he said, without addressing the US-French proposal.
Talking tough throughout the address, Netanyahu also said that the Hamas terror group in Gaza “has got to go.”
Netanyahu said that it was “inconceivable” and “ridiculous” that Hamas could be part of reconstructing Gaza and that Israel will reject any plan that includes them. Giving the terror group a role in post-war Gaza would be akin to “allowing the defeated Nazis in 1945” to help rebuild Germany.
On Friday, the IDF said that Hamas had been largely defeated militarily throughout the Gaza Strip, and it was now a guerrilla terror group that would take some more time to dismantle.
“In measured military operations, we destroyed nearly all of Hamas’s terror battalions—23 out of 24 battalions,” Netanyahu said. “Now, to complete our victory, we are focused on mopping up Hamas’s remaining fighting capabilities.”
Israel, said Netanyahu, will move to stop Hamas from stealing humanitarian aid and selling to Gazans at exorbitant prices.
At the same time, Israel remains focused on “our sacred mission” – bringing the hostages home, he said, wearing the yellow ribbon that symbolizes the fight to free them from Hamas.
Family members of hostages held in Gaza — both living and slain — flew with Netanyahu to New York and listened to the speech from the gallery. He recognized each family and asked them to stand.
Netanyahu said he had “a message” for the Hamas captors of the hostages: “Let them go. Let them go. All of them. Those alive today must be returned alive, and the remains of those whom you brutally killed must be returned to their families.”
“This war can come to an end now. All that has to happen is for Hamas to surrender, lay down its arms and release all the hostages,” Netanyahu insisted.
“But if they don’t,” he vowed, “we will fight until we achieve victory, total victory; there is no substitute for it.”
“Israel will win this battle,” he said, “because we don’t have a choice.”
After the Jews were butchered for generations and nobody raised a finger in their defense, he said, today Israel has a brave army of incomparable courage, “and we are defending ourselves.”
“Israel will not go gently into that good night,” he continued, paraphrasing the poet Dylan Thomas.
Netanyahu issued a firm threat to Iran as well, after holding up a map marked “The Curse” that showed Iranian-backed countries in black.
“I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran,” he said. “If you strike us, we will strike you.”
“There is no place in Iran where the long arm of Israel cannot reach. And that is true for the entire Middle East,” he warned.
To applause and cheers from the public gallery where the hostages’ families and others who came with Netanyahu were sitting, he exclaimed, “We are winning.”
Turning to Iran’s nuclear program, Netanyahu called on the UN Security Council to “snap back” sanctions against Tehran. Israeli actions, he claimed, delayed Iran’s nuclear program by “perhaps a decade,” but have not stopped it.
“Iran now seeks to weaponize its nuclear program,” Netanyahu argued. “For the sake of the peace and security of all your countries, for the sake of the peace and security of the entire world, we must not let that happen. And I assure you, Israel will do everything in its power to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
A pivot of history
Amid the grandiose statements, Netanyahu also spoke at length about the prospects of peace. He structured the address around the possibility of choosing a blessing or curse, a theme of Saturday’s weekly Torah portion.
While Iran sought to drag the region backward — “the curse” — Netanyahu offered a vision of what peace with Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Muslim world could bring.
“That is the choice we face today: the curse of Iran’s unremitting aggression or the blessing of a historic reconciliation between Arab and Jew,” he said.
“Israel has already made its choice,” Netanyahu explained. “We’ve decided to advance the blessing. We’re building a partnership for peace with our Arab neighbors while fighting the forces of terror that threaten that peace.”
“Israel seeks peace. Israel yearns for peace. Israel has made peace and will make peace again,” said Netanyahu.
To achieve a new Middle East, he said, “we must continue the path we paved with the Abraham Accords four years ago. Above all, this means achieving a historic peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”
Such a peace would boost security and trade across the region, said Netanyahu. “It would help transform the Middle East into a global juggernaut.”
He called a potential Israel-Saudi peace deal “a true pivot of history.”
“It would usher in a historic reconciliation between the Arab world and Israel, between Islam and Judaism, between Mecca and Jerusalem.”
The best way to foil Iran’s “nefarious designs,” was to expand the blessings of peace, with US “support and leadership,” he said. “This can happen much sooner than people think,” he said, urging the world not to let the opportunity go by.
“What choice will you make?” he asked — stand with Israel and democracy, or Iran and darkness.
Netanyahu delivered his address less than two weeks after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said that the kingdom would not recognize Israel without a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
The prime minister did not reiterate his opposition to a Palestinian state during the speech. But he did blast Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who addressed the UN General Assembly on Thursday.
“He still refuses to condemn the horrific massacre of October 7th,” said Netanyahu. “He’s still paying hundreds of millions to terrorists who murdered Israelis and Americans.”
The PA leader, he said, is pushing to expel Israel from the UN: “Not Hamas, but Abbas.”
He also turned his ire against International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan, who has requested arrest warrants against him and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“The ICC prosecutor’s rush to judgment, his refusal to treat Israel with its independent courts the way other democracies are treated,” said Netanyahu “is hard to explain by anything other than pure antisemitism.”
‘Swamp of antisemitic bile’
The United Nations itself, a frequent target of Israeli officials, came under withering criticism from Netanyahu. He said that he had not intended to come to speak while his country was at war — a claim with little evidence — but decided to make the journey as he “heard the lies and slanders leveled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium.”
The singling out of Israel, he said “has made this once-respected institution contemptible in the eyes of decent people everywhere.”
Netanyahu said the “UN house of darkness” is the Palestinians’ “home court.”
“They know that in this swamp of antisemitic bile, there’s an automatic majority willing to demonize the Jewish state for anything. In this anti-Israel flat-earth society, any false charge, any outlandish allegation can muster a majority.”
Shortly after the speech at the UN, Netanyahu’s office announced that the prime minister would be returning to Israel early, following the massive strike in Beirut, reported to have targeted Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. The new departure time from New York was set for Friday at 8:00 p.m. local time, or 3 a.m. in Israel.
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