Foreign & Public Diplomacy

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report. It’s Thursday, which means we are back to our regular weekly programming, but we have more news from another busy day at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York City.

Here’s what’s on tap for the day: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers his UNGA speech, U.S. President Donald Trump hosts Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington, and Denmark’s military intelligence service issues a chilling warning about Russia.

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report. It’s Thursday, which means we are back to our regular weekly programming, but we have more news from another busy day at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York City.

Here’s what’s on tap for the day: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers his UNGA speech, U.S. President Donald Trump hosts Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington, and Denmark’s military intelligence service issues a chilling warning about Russia.

For the second year in a row, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced a mass walkout at UNGA. As Netanyahu took the stage for his speech on Thursday, more than 100 U.N. delegates left their seats and exited the assembly hall.

“If there are any other moral cowards who haven’t yet left this hall, please do so now,” Netanyahu began.

He then referenced his first-ever speech to the gathering 14 years ago, when he said the world must prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. “That’s exactly what we did,” he said. “It was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make as prime minister, because if I hadn’t done it, we’d all be dead.” Netanyahu characterized Israel’s actions against Iran as “defending many of the countries whose delegates just left this room.”

He also recounted the death of his older brother Yonatan, who was killed in action during Operation Entebbe, a 1976 mission by Israel Defense Forces commandos to rescue Jewish hostages who were being held in Entebbe, Uganda, after their flight from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked by Palestinian and German militants.

Netanyahu referenced his brother several times throughout the speech, but he repeatedly came back to one line he said his brother told him: “We’re going to win, because we have no other choice.”

Defender. The Israeli prime minister once again defended Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, calling the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that prompted it the “darkest day in Israel’s history” and praising Israel’s military response. “We didn’t collapse. Instead, we rose and fought like lions,” he said, outlining the “seven fronts” where the Israeli military is now fighting in the region, including in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. “Do you know any other country the size of New Jersey capable of fighting a seven-front war?” he asked.

Like many world leaders, Netanyahu’s speeches at the multilateral institution—which Israel increasingly expresses great disdain for—are always aimed at least partly at his domestic audience, but that was even more so the case this year, with just over a month to go before Israelis head to the polls for a referendum on his government.

In his remarks, he presented himself as a defender of Israel. “We have no other country. It is a privilege to defend it,” he said, telling all the Israelis killed in the war that “your sacrifice will not be in vain.” And he praised Trump, saying Israel had “no greater partner” and that the two leaders launched the war against........

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