Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds signs as he addresses the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Friday.

Pamela Smith/AP

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Pamela Smith/AP

In a fiery speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country was “winning” on multiple fronts and would strike Iran and its proxies across the Middle East, just as Israeli air force jets did them are preparing to destroy a complex of buildings in central Beirut that Israel says serves as the headquarters of the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah.

Many of the delegates in the UN room stood at the start of his speech – in which he called the UN a “swamp of anti-Semitic bile” – and quickly left the room amid public prodding.

For days, Arab leaders, including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, have been attacking the Israeli military’s behavior in the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon.

Abbas told delegates that Israel did not deserve its UN membership because, in his words, his government had “exploited” the Hamas-led attack in Israel on October 7 to “launch an all-out genocidal war in the Gaza Strip and Israel has denied committing genocide or other war crimes and argued that it is struggling to defeat militant groups and defend itself against further attacks.

Netanyahu insisted he traveled to New York after “hearing the lies and slanders of many speakers on this podium about my country.”

But his trip had been planned well in advance, and although his arrival in New York for the annual general meeting was slightly delayed for domestic political reasons, he told the audience of dignitaries and world leaders that he had “decided to come here and settle down “. set the record straight.

“Israel longs for peace,” Netanyahu continued in his address on Friday. “Israel has made peace and will make peace again.”

Shortly after his speech, his office announced that he would return early from New York to Israel.

But nearly a year after Israel’s war against Hamas began in Gaza, the Israeli leader’s behavior during months of on-again, off-again ceasefire negotiations has not only angered his political opponents and a sizable portion of his own citizens, but also baffled many world leaders.

Critics have often said in recent months that Netanyahu – whose political savvy has repeatedly helped him become Israel’s longest-serving prime minister in history – was willing to show negotiating flexibility in private meetings before making public statements signaling progress block in peace talks.

Such contradictions arose again and again during the negotiations between the USA, Egypt and Qatar regarding a ceasefire in Gaza. And now – according to Israeli media – this form of feigned obstruction has resurfaced in the latest ceasefire proposal developed by the US and France.

Danny Danon, Israel’s UN ambassador, said the government was pushing for certain conditions in any agreement. “If we can achieve the war goals through diplomacy, we prefer that,” he told the UN Security Council on Friday. “And the goals are to enable the citizens of Israel, 70,000 refugees, to return to their homes. And to drive Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon.”

Meanwhile, Israel has continued its military operations. Danon said Israeli forces carried out a “precise attack on Hezbollah headquarters” in Beirut on Friday.

As the Israeli military calls up additional reserves near the northern border and responds to Hezbollah rocket fire with dozens of airstrikes in Lebanon, Netanyahu remains at the center of a strident call from the chief prosecutor for an arrest warrant for him at the International Criminal Court based in The Hague, Netherlands.

The Israeli prime minister met with his Dutch counterpart in one of several meetings in New York this week and raised the ongoing court case. According to Netanyahu’s office, he insisted during the bilateral conversation that the prosecutor’s actions “constituted a political trial based on false slanders that endangers any democracy that defends itself against terrorism.”

Michele Kelemen contributed to United Nations reporting.