Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to “finish the job” in Gaza and said that the recognition of a Palestinian state was “insane” as delegations walked out of his address to the United Nations, The Guardian of UK reported.
Just days after the UK, France, Canada, Australia, and other countries broke with the United States to recognise an independent Palestinian state, Netanyahu called a two-state solution “sheer madness.
“It’s insane, and we won’t do it. Giving the Palestinians a state one mile from Jerusalem after October 7 is like giving al-Qaeda a state one mile from New York City after September 11,” he said.
Now 157 of 193 UN member states recognise Palestine as an independent state.
More than 100 diplomats from more than 50 countries walked out as Netanyahu entered the hall, according to a tally by the Washington Post.
Netanyahu gave the speech the morning after Donald Trump said he would restrain Netanyahu from annexing territories in the West Bank in retaliation for the expressions of support for Palestinian statehood. “I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank … It’s not going to happen,” Trump said.
Rightwing allies of Netanyahu have proposed annexing up to 82% of the West Bank, which is formally governed by the Palestinian Authority. UK officials said that they were concerned the US could endorse the move.
But Netanyahu did not address the controversial plan on Friday, September 26, and his office has said he would only respond after the two meet on Monday, September 29, at the White House.
Targeting the UK, France and other countries that recognised Palestine, he said: “You didn’t do something right. You did something wrong, horribly wrong.
”Your disgraceful decision will encourage terrorism against Jews and against innocent people everywhere,” he said.
More than 22 people were killed in Gaza on Friday ahead of Netanyahu’s speech, AFP reported, citing the civil defence agency, a rescue force operating under Hamas authority. Al Jazeera reported that as many as 47 Palestinians had been killed since dawn, including eight in a strike on a tent camp for displaced people in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp.
In the speech, Netanyahu vowed to continue an offensive targeting Gaza City, ignoring international condemnation that it would worsen a humanitarian crisis in Gaza that prosecutors from the international criminal court have condemned as a war crime.
”The final remnants of Hamas are holed up in Gaza City,” he said, and Israel “must finish the job” to avoid facing attacks like those on 7 October “again and again and again”.
“That is why we want to do so as fast as possible.”
Netanyahu used his speech at the 80th anniversary of the United Nations general assembly to deny that Israel was carrying out a genocide in Gaza, saying: “Would a country committing genocide plead with the civilian population it is supposedly targeting to get out of harm’s way?”
The speech was highly contentious and delivered to a mostly empty room in the general assembly’s grand hall, which has capacity for 1,800 people. Reports said that delegations for the United States and United Kingdom, which remained in attendance, were filled out with junior diplomats as opposed to senior officials.
But Netanyahu claimed foreign leaders who “public condemn us privately thank us. They tell me how much they value Israel’s superb intelligence services that have prevented, time and again, terrorist attacks in their capitals.” He did not say which countries’ leaders had privately thanked him.
Thousands protested the speech on the streets of New York City, including at a main rally at Times Square across midtown.
