How Netanyahu's lies at the UN lost the world but won Israel

Since 7 October, support for Israel throughout the world has plummeted. In the US in particular, its favourability has dropped from +51% to -16% according to a CNN poll. That's a 65% decline over the past eight years. Most of this happened since 2023, when Israel launched its genocide against Gaza.

Since then, it has devised various strategies to arrest the phenomenon. In 2026, it budgeted $730 million for what's euphemistically called "public diplomacy" (i.e., hasbara). This is part of an Israeli "global intifada" in defence of genocide, which often invokes overused tropes such as "blood libel" and "support for terrorism," etc.  This is little more than empty sloganeering based on lies.

Israel paid nearly $50 million to Trump's former digital mastermind, Brad Parscale, to create an AI army of social media bot accounts spouting pro-Israel propaganda. They created their own fake think tank, AI-populated website, and articles.

The battle has raged from world capitals to international fora. This also played out at the annual UN General Assembly meeting in NYC last week. Israel's UN ambassador Danny Danon called for the arrest of New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, after the latter repeated his call for Netanyahu's apprehension under an International Criminal Court arrest warrant.

Similarly, when London's mayor, Saddiq Khan, in a 2025 Eid al Fitr message called the Gaza assault a "betrayal of humanity," the Israeli embassy accused him of spreading "Hamas propaganda."  It's no accident that both are Muslim and both are courageous champions of Palestinian victims.

Mamdani fired back: “I have been clear about the way that I see the world...When it comes to Benjamin Netanyahu, I have described him as I believe him to be: a war criminal and an architect of a horrific genocide of the Palestinian people."

Netanyahu replied vitriolically: "Shame on you, Mr Mamdani. Shame on you for supporting the Hamas terrorist monsters who butchered our people."

He vowed to "tell the truth" about Mamdani during his speech. As if the NYC mayor was hiding some scandalous secret. What was truly scandalous was that the perpetrator of a genocide could take the podium of an international body to spew his lies. But not to worry, few listened. Only a few diehard delegates remained in the hall. The rest walked out in protest.

To any other leader of any other country, it would be an abject embarrassment. To an Israeli leader, it's a badge of honour.

Outside the UN hall, tens of thousands protested with banners proclaiming "End the Genocide." Among them was award-winning Hollywood actress Hannah Einbinder. She proudly held this banner aloft.

After she was arrested, the proud Jewish anti-Zionist stated on her Instagram story: “If the pictures of my friends and me getting arrested in protest of Netanyahu’s shameful visit to New York draw attention to anything, let it be to the devastating genocidal war Israel is waging against the people of Palestine and Southern Lebanon — to the settler attacks, the home demolitions, the bombing of people as they sleep”.

Netanyahu is always at his best (at least for an Israeli audience) when he's the pugilist, showering blows on Israel's enemies: David battling global Goliath. However, in this case he may win a skirmish via video or a snappy soundbite. But he can never win the war. In fact, he's already lost it.

The Israeli leader also attacked French President Emmanuel Macron for denouncing Israel's West Bank mass murder, in which 1,100 Palestinians have been murdered since 7 October, along with 65 villages depopulated and 5,000 inhabitants ethnically cleansed.

Israeli apologists were in high dudgeon over a single word in a single sentence in the text of his speech. They claim Macron said: "Hamas has never operated in the West Bank”. But this was a mistranslation. He actually said: “Hamas has never dominated the West Bank.” Nevertheless, the hasbara brigade – all apparently members of the Académie Française – decided that Macron actually said Hamas never "was active" there.

And what a field day they had! Parsing a single word to bash a European leader with the temerity to call out Israel for its crimes. This is Israeli apologetics at its most banal. Rather than strength, it signals desperation. Nothing says hopelessness like a leader speaking to an empty hall.

In Europe, Israel and its allies launched additional attacks on progressive foreign leaders who've called Gaza a "genocide" and spoken in support of Palestine. They include the UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Foreign Minister Ed Miliband, who've announced a sweeping ban on financial and commercial support for Israeli settlements. The chief rabbi accused them of  "mendacious anti-Israel rhetoric” betraying a “dangerous obsession with the Jewish state.”

After Berlin's Left Party victory in the municipal elections, Social Democratic Party (SPD) political rivals accused it of antisemitism.

This Israeli campaign offensive has two goals. They seek to distract from the Gaza genocide and the worldwide cratering of support, including the increasing demands among US Democrats for cutting military aid and a ban on settlements. They are also working to feed "red meat" to Likud's domestic constituency ahead of October's national elections.

The Israeli right hates two things in particular: Palestinians (and Arabs in general); and foreign "meddling" in Israel's affairs. This also includes international bodies like the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, and the International Court of Justice. Netanyahu is banking on the "they all hate us" mantra to unite the right and bring it out to the polls.

This campaign is political theatre. The Israeli leader is using an international campaign to win a domestic election. He clearly doesn't care that he's hated so deeply abroad that anything and everything he says elicits disgust, rather than agreement. No one except the die-hard Zionist few can stomach his lies, which are part of a desperate attempt to staunch a self-inflicted wound that can never be healed.

Richard Silverstein writes the Tikun Olam blog and is a freelance journalist specialising in exposing secrets of the Israeli national security state. He campaigns against opacity and the negative impact of Israeli military censorship.

Follow Richard on X: @richards1052

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.