From Atop UN Podium, Netanyahu Assails ‘Antisemitic’ Mamdani, His Wife, and ‘Hamas Buddies’

Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu denounced “lies” about his government’s war against Hamas during his speech at the United Nations on Thursday, shaming everyone who has called the Israeli response to the October 7, 2023, attacks a genocide “whether they sit in this hall or in the office of the antisemitic mayor of New York.”Mr. Netanyahu arrived at New York just in time to give his remarks at the 81st UN General Assembly. His brief touchdown follows a high-profile feud with Mayor Zohran Mamdani this summer that saw an empty threat to execute an International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Mr. Netanyahu for alleged war crimes. The Israeli leader and members of his party responded that it was Mr. Mamdani who should be arrested. “You try to stop me from coming here. You try to silence me,” Mr. Netanyahu said in remarks as he played in part to an audience at home that will vote whether to return him to his leadership post in a heated legislative election scheduled for next month. “Well, you can’t silence me. You can’t silence the truth. Here’s a simple truth: Israel didn’t commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide. That’s exactly what Mr. Mamdani’s Hamas buddies would have done to us had we not stopped them.”The prime minister cited the mayor’s well-known relationship with leftwing streamer Hasan Piker, who once said America “deserved” the September 11 attacks — Mr. Piker later called his choice of words “inappropriate” — and referenced his association with the formerly Gaza-based photojournalist Motaz Azaiza. Mr. Azaiza, who was employed by the UN’s Relief and Works Agency supporting Palestinians in Gaza, has acknowledged being on a Hamas-sponsored group chat and withholding images of Hamas fighters and captives following the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel over concerns Israeli intelligence agencies would use them to identify targets. While at it, Mr. Netanyahu also called out the mayor’s wife, Rama Duwaji, though she holds no elected office, referencing two social media posts she liked celebrating the October 7th attacks and saying Tel Aviv shouldn’t exist.Mr. Netanyahu’s political party, Likud, has made no bones about its view of Mr. Mamdani’s positions on Israel. It has plastered Mr. Mamdani’s face on a campaign billboard in downtown Tel Aviv this summer, featuring him among a rogues list that included leaders of Hamas, Turkey, and Iran.While Mr. Netanyahu was speaking, Mr. Mamdani’s team posted a video of the mayor breaking bread and planting an olive tree with Palestinians from Gaza at Gracie Mansion, captioning it with: “May peace be our future.” In a statement shared with The New York Sun, the mayor’s press team called Mr. Netanyahu’s assertions “baseless lies meant to sanitize his genocide of Palestinians.” Farther downtown, a few celebrities, including Susan Sarandon, and high-profile members of Mr. Mamdani’s party, the Democratic Socialists of America, were arrested for blocking traffic while protesting Mr. Netanyahu. Among them was New York City DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo, a self-proclaimed “union electrician” who was outed over the summer for his generational wealth and lapsed union membership.In a video earlier this summer in which he admitted that he could not arrest Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Mamdani reminded New Yorkers of their right to protest his visit, a move widely perceived as fomenting unrest in a charged political climate. Mr. Netanyahu pointed that out too.“Shame on you for inverting victim and aggressor. Shame on you for spitting in the face of the truth,” he told the mayor. “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: ‘It changed so quickly.’”Despite the protestations from the dais at Turtle Bay, one Satmar community leader who has defended Mr. Mamdani since his campaign, Moishe Indig, said Mr. Netanyahu does not speak for all of New York’s Jewish community.“Your government arrests hundreds of innocent yeshiva students each week, while we in New York practice our faith and live freely and safely,” the religious anti-Zionist rabbi posted. “Mayor Zohran Mamdani is a friend and ally to our community. You are not.”

From Atop UN Podium, Netanyahu Assails ‘Antisemitic’ Mamdani, His Wife, and ‘Hamas Buddies’

From Atop UN Podium, Netanyahu Assails ‘Antisemitic’ Mamdani, His Wife, and ‘Hamas Buddies’

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