Benjamin Netanyahu to deliver defiant UN speech while facing protests and political isolation

Prime minister will ‘highlight Israel’s achievements’ as he heads towards his toughest re-election challenge When he takes the stage at the UN on Thursday, Benjamin Netanyahu will deliver a familiar message of defiance even as protests and international condemnation leave the Israeli leader in growing isolation. Netanyahu is facing his toughest re-election challenge in a political career spanning decades with three ongoing conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, and a growing campaign of violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Internationally, Israel is facing growing condemnation. The UK, France and Canada are planning to sanction Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and the British foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, has accused Israeli settlers of committing ethnic cleansing of Palestinian communities. And the US is in the midst of a historic shift in public opinion against Israel, with 62% of respondents telling Pew in July they had a negative opinion of Netanyahu’s government, and 60% of American Jews in a poll released this week hoping he is voted out in October. Protests are expected both in the UN’s general assembly hall and on the streets of New York City, where mayor Zohran Mamdani has tempered his earlier promises to arrest Netanyahu as a war criminal to assure demonstrators this week that he would protect their “right to [protest] in this city”.

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