Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu turned his United Nations General Assembly address into a direct confrontation with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, accusing him of spreading antisemitism and making Jewish residents unsafe in their own city, a charge Mamdani rejected as cover for what he called a genocide in Gaza.
Netanyahu addressed Mamdani by name from the UN podium on Thursday, September 24, 2026, in a move virtually without precedent: a sitting head of state using the General Assembly floor to publicly challenge the mayor of the host city. The Israeli prime minister told the assembly that Jewish New Yorkers had personally told him they no longer feel safe under Mamdani's leadership.
"Mr. Mamdani, since you were elected mayor of this city, many Jews no longer feel safe in New York," Netanyahu said, the Associated Press reported. "They talk to me, they tell me 'this isn't the city we remember, it changed so quickly.'"
The speech marked the first time Netanyahu visited New York since Mamdani, the city's first Muslim mayor, took office. And it made clear that the Israeli leader intended to use the global stage not just to defend Israel's military campaign in Gaza but to put a specific American politician on the spot for what Netanyahu described as reckless rhetoric with real-world consequences for Jewish residents.
Netanyahu did not limit himself to generalities. He accused Mamdani of distorting facts about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and directly linked the mayor's public statements to a climate of hostility toward Jewish New Yorkers. The Washington Free Beacon reported that Netanyahu cited incidents of Jews being threatened and stabbed on New York streets and accused Mamdani of praising individuals convicted of supporting Hamas.
Netanyahu went further, accusing Mamdani's wife of liking social media posts that praised the October 7, 2023, massacre and called for Tel Aviv not to exist. He also alleged that Mamdani had invited a journalist who filmed Hamas torturing Israeli hostages.
From the podium, Netanyahu addressed Mamdani directly:
"Mr. Mamdani, you tried to stop me from coming here. You tried to silence me. Well, you can't silence me and you can't silence the truth."
He added, as Breitbart reported: "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."
The confrontation has been building for months. During his mayoral campaign, Mamdani promised he would direct New York City police to execute the International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Netanyahu, a warrant alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity related to Israel's military operations in Gaza. Mamdani later acknowledged that city officials lack the legal authority to arrest a foreign head of state, a reversal that drew scrutiny for its inconsistency.
Mamdani has since shifted to encouraging the federal government to take Netanyahu into custody. President Trump, who met with Mamdani in New York earlier in the week, has said that will not happen.
Netanyahu devoted a substantial portion of his address to rejecting the accusation of genocide in Gaza, a charge Mamdani has made repeatedly, calling Netanyahu "a war criminal" and "the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people."
Netanyahu called the genocide allegation "the greatest lie of the century." He cited Colonel John Spencer, head of urban warfare studies at West Point, who has stated that Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties than any other military in history, RealClearPolitics reported.
Netanyahu said Israel sent millions of text messages, phone calls, and leaflets warning Palestinian civilians to leave combat areas. He claimed Israel facilitated two million tons of food and one million polio vaccinations into Gaza during the conflict.
"Israel didn't commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide," Netanyahu told the assembly.
Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza after the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023. More than 73,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, a figure cited by the Associated Press without attribution to a specific source.
Netanyahu also praised the Trump administration's support, telling the assembly, "we've had no greater partner than President Trump." The Trump-Mamdani meeting earlier in the week added another layer to the dynamic: the president met with the very mayor whom Netanyahu was about to publicly confront on the world stage.
The speech itself was a flashpoint inside the General Assembly hall. Seventy-seven delegations walked out before Netanyahu addressed the chamber, a fact seized upon by Iran's deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, who posted on X that the walkouts "spoke louder than any speech," Fox News reported.
Gharibabadi called the address a "publicity stunt" and accused Netanyahu of using the UN podium to justify "war and aggression." The Iranian official added: "The world will not be fooled by narrative-building. History will judge the crimes, occupation, and aggression, not the publicity stunts in New York."
Outside the United Nations, the confrontation spilled into the streets. Jewish Voice for Peace, an advocacy group, reported that around 100 people were arrested near the UN during a large protest over Netanyahu's appearance. The group said those arrested included celebrities Susan Sarandon and Hannah Einbinder. No law enforcement source independently confirmed the arrest figures or names in the available reporting.
The tensions between Netanyahu and Mamdani had already been escalating in the days before the speech, with the Israeli government accusing the mayor of inciting hostility toward Jewish New Yorkers ahead of the UN visit.
Mamdani responded with a written statement that did not address Netanyahu's specific accusations about his wife's social media activity, his associations with Hamas supporters, or his invitation of the journalist Netanyahu named. Instead, the mayor returned to his familiar framing.
"As he has done time and again, Prime Minister Netanyahu used his speech to repeat baseless lies meant to sanitize his genocide of Palestinians. Yet no lie can change the fact that he remains the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity."
Mamdani has maintained that his criticism of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights do not amount to antisemitism. But that position grows harder to sustain when the specific charges from Netanyahu, praising convicted Hamas supporters, hosting a journalist who filmed hostage torture, a spouse who liked posts celebrating the October 7 massacre, go unanswered. A denial is not a rebuttal.
Israel's diplomatic apparatus has also pushed back against Mamdani. Israel's UN ambassador has demanded consequences for the mayor's protest encouragement, framing Mamdani's conduct as beyond the bounds of legitimate policy disagreement.
The broader question raised by the confrontation is one American cities increasingly face: where does criticism of a foreign government's military policy end and incitement against a domestic religious minority begin? Netanyahu drew that line sharply on Thursday, arguing that Mamdani's rhetoric has made Jewish New Yorkers targets. Mamdani insists the line does not exist, that opposing Israel's conduct in Gaza carries no domestic consequences for Jewish Americans.
The evidence from New York's own streets suggests Netanyahu has the stronger case. When Jews report being threatened on the way to synagogue in the largest city in the United States, the mayor who called the leader of the Jewish state a war criminal and promised to have him arrested owes his constituents more than a press release about the ICC.
