NEW YORK \u2014 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed during a fiery address to the U.N. General Assembly on Friday that his country would continue its military operation in Lebanon in defiance of a U.S. cease-fire proposal demanding a temporary halt in hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.<\/p>\n
His swaggering, bellicose remarks included a warning to all of Israel\u2019s enemies, namely Iran, that there is no place to hide from Israel\u2019s might.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you strike us, we will strike you,\u201d Netanyahu said. \u201cThere is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that\u2019s true of the entire Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n
Netanyahu\u2019s closely watched remarks came as Israel escalates its campaign in Lebanon, taking out key leaders of the militant group in a bombardment and apparent sabotage operation that has killed more than 600 people, seen Hezbollah return fire with scores of rockets and missiles, and rallied governments across the world to call for a cease-fire.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu said Israel is \u201cwinning\u201d and pledged to keep fighting. \u201cWe\u2019ll continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu\u2019s address is the latest in a series of remarks that have embarrassed U.S. officials who earlier this week touted a \u201cbreakthrough\u201d in negotiating a proposal for a 21-day truce they insisted was done in full coordination with the Israeli government.<\/p>\n
White House spokesman John Kirby was asked repeatedly Thursday why Netanyahu kept contradicting a proposal that the U.S. claimed had his support, but was unable to offer an answer other than to say that the prime minister\u2019s remarks were out-of-step with what his aides told U.S. officials privately.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat prompted the prime minister\u2019s comments, only he can say,\u201d Kirby said. \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t have issued the statement we did if it wasn\u2019t supportive of conversations we had with top Israeli officials yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inside the U.N. assembly hall here in Manhattan, scores of diplomats walked out on Netanyahu\u2019s speech, an indication of the Israeli leader\u2019s worsening unpopularity as he rebuffs international efforts to halt the fighting in Lebanon and secure a separate cease-fire with Hamas militants in Gaza. He made clear that the feeling was mutual, calling the world body an \u201cantisemitic swamp\u201d that needed to be \u201cdrained.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outside the U.N., thousands of demonstrators rallied in Manhattan to protest Israel\u2019s escalation in Lebanon and ongoing bombardment of Gaza, where more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to local health authorities. Israel\u2019s offensive there followed the Hamas-led Oct. 7 cross-border attack into Israel that killed more than 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostage.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur enemies seek not only to destroy us, they seek to destroy our common civilization and return all of us to a dark age of tyranny and terror,\u201d Netanyahu said.<\/p>\n
Richard Gowan, a U.N. expert at the International Crisis Group, said Netanyahu\u2019s remarks were directed to the Israeli public, including his far-right cabinet, which has threatened to implode his government if he agrees to silence Israel\u2019s guns.<\/p>\n
\u201cNetanyahu, like Trump, has always understood that these U.N. speeches are opportunities to generate catchphrases and memes. He is not that bothered by what the diplomatic audience thinks. He is doing this for domestic media and his U.S. audience,\u201d said Gowan, referencing former president Donald Trump, the Republican nominee in November\u2019s election.<\/p>\n
The Israeli leader\u2019s dismissal of a temporary cease-fire in Gaza is another setback for the United States, which has been pushing for months for a deal there alongside Egyptian and Qatari mediators.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will fight until we achieve victory, total victory. There is no substitute for it,\u201d Netanyahu said.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu\u2019s speech was laden with religious language and the specter of an Iranian \u201ccurse\u201d in the Middle East. He sought to underscore that point by holding up a map marked in black over the territory of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, the countries that encompass Tehran\u2019s so-called \u201cAxis of Resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n
In solidarity with Hamas, Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, leading to an increasingly deadly military escalation between the two warring sides over the last year.<\/p>\n
President Joe Biden had tapped his top aides to broker a temporary cease-fire during the annual gathering of diplomats at the U.N. General Assembly, prompting a flurry of meetings by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan with Israeli, European and Middle East diplomats.<\/p>\n
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic told The Washington Post that \u201cpartnership\u201d between the United States and Europe on preventing a \u201cwide escalation\u201d in Lebanon is critical. But the proposal, endorsed by a wide range of allies including the European Union, France, Australia, Canada, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Japan, appeared destined to languish without more pressure on both sides to de-escalate.<\/p>\n
Karen DeYoung, Adam Taylor and Sammy Westfall in Washington contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
NEW YORK \u2014 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed during a fiery address to the U.N. General Assembly on Friday that his country would continue its military operation in Lebanon in defiance of a U.S. cease-fire proposal demanding a temporary halt in hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. His swaggering, bellicose remarks included a warning to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}