It is a given that many media and political descriptions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the United Nations will call it fiery and defiant.
And so it was — and so it had to be.
Both the content and the sometimes-harsh tone were essential if he was to capture the moment and the point of his appearance.
Once again and always, Israel is in a fight for its existence, and finds itself being abandoned by former allies in Europe and increasingly isolated on the world stage.
Given those circumstances, nobody of sane and fair mind could seriously expect the Jewish state’s leader to come to a hostile United Nations bearing a bouquet of olive branches.
Not to mention the fact that New York is now led by a mayor who is hostile to him personally and to Israel’s existence as the Jewish homeland.
Had he delivered a subservient and apologetic tone on either front, Netanyahu would have been deserving of a serious head-shrinking examination.
Skills on full display
And he would have faced hostile crowds when he returned home to Tel Aviv, as well as almost certain defeat in next month’s elections.
And so the timing of the address dictated that it inevitably would be a plea to Israeli voters as well as a forceful message of defiance to the nations of the world — and Mayor Mamdani.
My view is that Netanyahu achieved a smashing success on all fronts.
Not that he necessarily changed a single mind anywhere, but that he made the best possible case for himself and his tiny and beleaguered country.
As for the huge number of delegates who noisily walked out as Netanyahu took the podium, he called them “moral cowards.”
True that, but they are also fools, for they missed a master class in how to simultaneously fight for your political future and your country.
There are good reasons why Netanyahu has been prime minister for more years than any of Israel’s previous leaders.
He’s a skilled tactician and has earned the gravitas that his long list of failed opponents have never been able to match.
He’s also a brilliant speaker — no teleprompter needed Thursday — and has a clear-eyed view of his nation’s place in the world and its strengths and weaknesses.
His theme, the very heart of the address, was that Israel must win every war it faces “because we have no other choice.”
Defeat would mean total destruction and even elimination, the goal of Israel’s enemies now and throughout human history.
He came to that survival of the fittest theme with a tender story about his late brother, Yonatan.
The prime minister said his brother used those exact words during the Six-Day War in 1967 and echoed them when they met not long before Yonatan was killed in 1976 while heroically leading the rescue of more than 100 Israeli hostages whose plane had been hijacked by terrorists and sat on the ground in the airport in Entebbe, Uganda.
From there, he cited Israel’s military prowess going back to earlier wars for its modern creation and against Arab neighbors, and its current role in fighting alongside the United States against a despotic Iran.
From his unique vantage point, it is a long “battle against barbarians.”
He also directly took on the false claims that Israel was guilty of committing “genocide” in Gaza and declared that the Israel Defense Forces are “the most moral army in the world.”
Its opponents, he said, hate Israel and hate America.
Saluted Trump
That is not to say that all criticism of him and the Jewish nation qualify as antisemitic, but there is no better example of his point than Iran’s long game of conquest.
Ever since the Islamic revolution nearly 50 years ago, the mad mullahs and their thuggish agents and brutal armies have called Israel the “Little Satan” and America the “Great Satan” — and vowed to eliminate both.
They have oppressed and slaughtered their own people, with tens of thousands executed and even tortured for daring to protest the government’s inept handling of the economy and even delivering the basics, such as electricity and clean drinking water.
Donald Trump is the first American president to treat the Iranian brutality at home and threats abroad with the seriousness they deserve, especially since Iran embarked on its quest for nuclear weapons decades ago.
Netanyahu saluted Trump for their partnership in the effort, even though Trump has lately been putting some distance between them as the president fights for his own standing and his Republican Party in the November midterms.
The irony is that both men face political peril in part because of their alliance against Iran and its brutal proxies, and that peril explains Netanyahu’s defiant speech.
More fully, he is battling for his political life in large part because many Israeli voters hold him responsible for failing to see the growing Hamas threat that led to the terrorists’ brutal invasion on Oct. 7, 2023.
With 1,200 people killed, including many women and even children, it was the bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Netanyahu’s ability to put off a national inquiry about what went wrong and why the invasion was a complete surprise to the military has angered many voters across the political spectrum and could cost him his job next month.
In a clear instance of how he tried to rally his political base while at the UN, he criticized as overblown and exaggerated the widespread international criticism about Israeli settlers attacking and harassing Palestinians in the West Bank.
‘Can’t silence truth’
He put some distance between himself and the violent settlers, saying “I can’t stand them” as he touched his chest.
That was mild compared to his contempt for Mayor Mamdani, saying that since his election, “many Jews don’t feel in New York.”
It was a fitting broadside, given Mamdani’s bigoted attempt to have Netanyahu arrested as a “war criminal,” and the recent rise of antisemitism in what had been for decades the safest city in the world for Jews.
“Shame on you,” he said, and even threw a barbed jab at Mamdani’s wife for social media posts where she seemingly approved of Muslim violence against Jews.
“You tried to stop me,” he said, “but you can’t silence the truth.”
Hallelujah to that.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
