During his address to the United Nations General Assembly, the Israeli prime minister gave as good as he got.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani rarely misses an opportunity to criticize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to accuse him of various crimes, and to allege that he is the font from which so much Israeli perfidy springs — at least the sort that’s not endemic among the Jewish people.
During his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, Netanyahu gave as good as he got:
🚨 Netanyahu Goes Off on Mayor Mamdani
“You falsely, repeatedly accuse Israel of genocide. Mr. Mamdani, you tried to stop me from coming here. You tried to silence me. Well, you can't silence me. You can't silence the truth.” pic.twitter.com/zjpTmHAYyB
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) September 24, 2026
Speaking directly to the “antisemitic mayor of New York,” Netanyahu issued a prolonged indictment of Mamdani’s character, judgment, and associations — establishing a pattern of behavior that fits the charge.
Netanyahu scolded Mamdani for praising “criminals convicted of supporting Hamas.” He attacked him for counting among his friends Hasan Piker, dwelling for a moment on the streamer’s belief that Americans deserved the 9/11 attacks. He wondered why it was that Mamdani welcomed into his home a Palestinian journalist who subsequently admitted that he not only filmed Hamas’s atrocities but covered the footage up so as to avoid embarrassing the terrorist group. Netanyahu even criticized Mamdani’s wife for having “liked a post praising the October 7 massacre” and another post that contended that the Israeli city of Tel Aviv “shouldn’t exist.”
Contrary to the New York Times’ preemptive effort to throw itself in the path of the barbs Netanyahu hurled at the mayor, it’s all true. Mamdani did heap praise on the Holy Land Five, “who were blamed by a jury for the killing of a 17-year-old Jewish boy from New York City outside Jerusalem,” the Free Press reported. Mamdani did pal around with Piker during his bid for mayor despite — or because of — the streamer’s penchant for anti-American and anti-Israeli radicalism. He did embrace Motaz Azaiza, a gadfly Palestinian journalist who recently confessed to filming the events of October 7 and burying the footage. “I didn’t want to ruin the lives of the people filmed,” Azaiza explained. Mamdani’s wife did like those posts, although she has since apologized for her “harmful” social media habits.
Prior to his attack on Mamdani, Netanyahu addressed the foremost allegation against him and his country to which the mayor and his comrades are partial: the charge of genocide. With exasperation, Netanyahu described Israel’s efforts to protect civilian life. He described the “millions” of texts, calls, and leaflets sent out to alert Palestinian populations of impending Israeli action — an independently verifiable account, if any of Israel’s critics were to develop an interest in verification. “What genocidal regime gives one million polio vaccinations to the enemy’s population? What genocidal regime enables the distribution of two million tons of food into Gaza? That’s one ton for every person,” Netanyahu asked. “Accusing Israel of genocide is the greatest lie of the century.”
Netanyahu went on to accuse Mamdani of his own criminal negligence: “Mr. Mamdani, since you were elected mayor of this city, many Jews no longer feel safe in New York.” The city, he said, has become a place where the visibly Jewish are harassed, assaulted, and even stabbed — not at random but amid a growing campaign of anti-Jewish violence. “This isn’t the city we remember,” he said. “It changed so quickly.”
There’s truth to that, too. While anti-Jewish violence in New York started from an intolerably high baseline when Mamdani took office, the problem has only gotten worse under his tenure. “Antisemitic hate crimes are up 8% so far this year and make up more than half of the incidents in New York City,” CNN reported early this month.
“Mr. Mamdani, you tried to stop me from coming here,” Netanyahu concluded. “You tried to silence me. Well, you can’t silence me. You can’t silence the truth.”
Mamdani often contends that the Israeli prime minister must answer the allegations that the mayor so regularly hurls at him. Don’t hold your breath waiting for Mamdani to hold himself to the same standard.