Benjamin Netanyahu will speak at the UN general assembly today, where he is expected to attack New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, a vocal critic of the Israeli prime minister who has repeatedly described him as a war criminal.
In a video statement earlier this week, Netanyahu falsely accused Mamdani, New York City’s first Muslim mayor, of supporting Hamas and inciting riots against the city’s Jewish population.
Former ambassador expects a ‘campaign speech’
Michael Oren, the former Israeli ambassador, said he expected Netanyahu’s UN address to resemble a “campaign speech”.
“Maybe he’s thinking, ‘if I can attack Mamdani and attack the Iranians, somebody who was wavering between voting for me and voting for (Gadi) Eisenkot may decide to vote for me’,” Oren told Reuters, referring to Netanyahu’s main political rival in next month’s Israeli general election.
Mamdani’s ICC remarks
Mamdani said earlier this year that he was looking into whether his office could arrest Netanyahu, who is wanted by the international criminal court (ICC) over alleged war crimes in Gaza, if he visited New York. Speaking in July, he said: “He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the international criminal court, and what you will find is that is an opinion that is held by many, purely because of what his actions have wrought over these past many years.” But he conceded that he did not have the legal authority to do so. The US is not a party to the ICC and does not recognise its authority.
Despite his criticism of the Israeli government and staunch support for Palestinian rights, Mamdani is reportedly not taking part in the protests scheduled to take place in New York against Netanyahu. The New York Times reported that he will instead be visiting an LGBTQ+ centre with the prime minister of the Netherlands.
Protests and continued strikes
During the UN general assembly last year, Netanyahu delivered his address to a sea of empty chairs after delegates walked out of the hall in protest.
While Netanyahu prepares for his UN speech, the Israeli military has continued to launch strikes in the occupied West Bank and Lebanon. The Israel Defense Force (IDF) said it targeted “the home of a terrorist” in the village of Beit Imrin, north-west of Nablus. The Palestinian Wafa news agency reported that the home belonged to Dawas Hassoun, a Palestinian prisoner who has been detained since March for allegedly killing an Israeli. Multiple bombings have also been reported in the Nabatieh area of southern Lebanon, according to the country’s National News Agency.
The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, will be addressing the UN general assembly via video. Like last year, Abbas was banned from entering the US by the Trump administration, with the state department saying in a statement that the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) had “failed to live up to their commitments”. Donald Trump will be in Washington DC to host the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, who landed last night in his first state visit to the US capital in a decade.
