TURTLE BAY—Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly unloaded on "antisemitic" New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani in an unprecedented speech Thursday before the United Nations, saying the Arab mayor’s pro-Hamas activism has transformed Manhattan into an antisemitic cesspool where, he said, Jews are brazenly attacked in the streets by Mamdani’s supporters.
"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, 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," Netanyahu said in a strongly worded speech largely boycotted by Arab nations and other anti-Israel countries.
"Since you were elected mayor of this city," Netanyahu continued, "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." The Israeli leader accused Mamdani of intentionally stoking Jew-hatred by hobnobbing with prominent antisemites like Hasan Piker and praising "criminals convicted of supporting Hamas."
"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," Netanyahu said. "You praise criminals convicted of supporting Hamas. You count as friends people like Hasan Piker, who said America deserved 9/11. Some friends you have."
In the feud between leaders, Mamdani may have thrown the first stone. After campaigning on a promise to arrest Netanyahu when he came to New York—citing his indictment for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, whose judges and prosecutors are under formal U.S. sanctions—Mamdani in July gave an extraordinary, Gracie Mansion version of an Oval Office address, telling New Yorkers that his lawyers said he can’t arrest Netanyahu after all. He added that Netanyahu was not welcome in New York.
Even considering Mamdani’s remarks, Netanyahu’s focus on the first-term mayor is an unprecedented departure for a prominent foreign leader speaking before the United Nations, where speeches typically center around pressing diplomatic issues and foreign conflicts. Publicly berating the host city’s mayor signals that Netanyahu views Mamdani as the preeminent American antisemite.
"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," Netanyahu said, referring to Gaza journalist Motaz Azaiza’s recent admission that he withheld footage from Oct. 7 showing Hamas abusing Israelis.
"Your wife liked a post praising the October 7 massacre. She liked another post saying Tel Aviv shouldn't exist," Netanyahu noted, citing exclusive reporting from the Washington Free Beacon’s own Jon Levine. "You refused to condemn any of that. You falsely, repeatedly accuse Israel of genocide. Mr. Mamdani, you tried to stop me from coming here. You tried to silence me. Well, you can't silence me. You can't silence the truth."
Referencing Mamdani’s repeated claims that Israel and Netanyahu are waging a "genocide" in Gaza, the Israeli leader offered "a simple truth: Israel didn't commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide, and that's exactly, 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."
But in the years since Hamas launched its Oct. 7 terror spree, Netanyahu declared, Israel has emerged stronger—and will not hesitate to defend Jewry worldwide.
"The days when Jews were defenseless victims marched to the slaughter, those days are over," he said. "Today I have one message for Jews around the world: Raise your head high, be proud, be confident. Don't be intimidated. Stand up."
Netanyahu went on to predict that, unlike his own country, Iran is on the cusp of collapsing under the ayatollah’s badly battered hands.
"Israel has never been stronger. We are not afraid, but I'll tell you who is afraid: The tyrants of Tehran," he said. "That's who, and you know what they're most afraid of? Their own people, the brave Iranian people who have sacrificed so much for so long."
Netanyahu then displayed one of Elon Musk’s Starlink devices, saying the technology is enabling ordinary Iranians to access the Internet and rise up against the genocidal mullahs.
"The Iranian regime is especially afraid when their people have this," Netanyahu said, requesting that the U.N. secretary general provide the device to Iran’s diplomatic delegation.
"You can give it to the Iranian delegation," he said. "So when they inevitably defect, they too will be able to freely tell their story on social media."
Netanyahu added that it is "only a matter of time that, in Iran, something incredible will happen. The power of the people will overcome the people in power. This evil regime will fall and we will all celebrate that day."
