Netanyahu’s UN Speech Was a Full-On Defense of Israeli Settlements

Benjamin Netanyahu holds up a pager as he speaks during the 81st United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, September 24, 2026.Timothy A. Clary/AFP Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on the defensive when he took the stage at the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday. His country is facing growing condemnation from all sides: In September, 11 European countries and Canada announced a joint plan to sanction Israel’s West Bank settlements, and in 62 percent of Americans report a negative opinion of his government in a recent Pew poll; Netanyahu himself faces an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for war crimes including genocide. Protesters blocked streets outside hours before Netanyahu took the podium, and within the UN chamber, half of Netanyahu’s audience walked out before his speech even began. Netanyahu nonetheless appeared determined to declare victory, as he faces a contested reelection back home, thanking his “great American friends” for their help in “the battle against the barbarians.” Did he mean the bombardment of Gaza, in which the US has spent millions of dollars funding the killing of an estimated one-tenth of the enclave’s entire population? Israel’s expansion into Lebanon? The US-Israel war on Iran? Or the Israeli settlements that move ever-further into the West Bank? “We delivered crippling blows to all of them,” Netanyahu said. Netanyahu appeared particularly eager to defend settlers in the West Bank, whose state-supported violence against Palestinians and international observers is extremely well-documented by reporters, activists, and international human rights groups. Those settlers, he said, are nothing more than “a handful of young juvenile delinquents, about 150 in number, who throw stones, who chop down olive trees.” “Only maybe two, three” people have been killed by settlers, he said. That is false: a September UN report said that 81 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers or soldiers in the West Bank this year alone, and according to the BBC, at least 23 of those deaths “have occurred in the context of settler attacks.” 18 were children. Netanyahu didn’t mention those killings as he asserted that there have been “thousands of terrorist attacks against the peaceful settlers, honorable people, law-abiding people.” Laith Shalabi, a Palestinian New Yorker with family in the West Bank, told Mother Jones that he has seen an uptick in violence against his family and community this year. Traveling to visit his grandmother in his family’s West Bank village, Shalabi said he saw more Israeli flags along the route to his family’s village than ever before—and more soldiers. “Since the genocide, a lot of Israeli soldiers have kind of been more on edge with Palestinians,” Shalabi said, “on the attitude of shoot first, ask questions later.” When he arrived at the village, Shalabi learned that settlers had set up camp nearby. Locals told him about settlers who, at the slightest provocation, beat Palestinians with the butts of their guns or even shot at them—often within view of Israeli soldiers, who at best don’t intervene, at worst participate in the violence. People in the US “should know what these settlements do,” Shalabi said. “It’s important for me that Americans understand where their tax dollars are going and what they’re supporting and funding.” After another thirty minutes on the theme that allegations of genocide in Gaza constitute “the greatest lie of the century,” and shots at Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his wife, as well as podcaster Hasan Piker, Netanyahu left the stage. Protests continued outside. Civil rights lawyer Brad Parker of the Center for Constitutional Rights, in an interview before Netanyahu’s speech, characterized the Israeli prime minister’s status as “absolute impunity.” Federal authorities could follow the lead of the UK and France, and sanction the settlers—which, despite even Trump’s Israel ambassador Mike Huckabee characterizing settler conduct as terrorism, the White House and Congress appear resolutely opposed to doing. “Most indicted war criminals do not leave their countries, but Netanyahu just breezes in and out,” Parker said. “Putin, for example, his travel is very selective because of that. But it’s sort of an exception for Israel right now.”