By Carlos Fazio on September 31, 2025
Netanyahu at the UN
On September 26, amid the ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza, in an operation of propaganda and psychological warfare, Benjamin Netanyahu—the leading exponent of “wholesale terrorism” ( a term borrowed from Noam Chomsky) at the moment—took to the podium of the UN General Assembly to defend with arrogance and dirty tricks the crimes of the State of Israel against humanity in occupied Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, and Yemen.
He did so dressed in the same way as Donald Trump had done the previous Monday: white shirt, blue jacket, red tie; the colors of the US flag. This could be interpreted as a subliminal nod to the Jewish-American patrons of both men, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a de facto agent of Tel Aviv in the US, and the group of evangelical churches that see Israel as a fundamental step toward the advent of a new era of God.
Netanyahu speaking to a nearly empty UN, photo: Xinhua
Amid growing international isolation, Netanyahu’s appearance before a General Assembly that walked out in protest, leaving the hall virtually empty, could be part of what Max Blumenthal described as Israel’s hybrid war in the US focused on propaganda and media control.
The US is the irreplaceable rear guard of the Jewish state, without whose economic, military, political, and diplomatic support it would simply disappear. Control of that rear guard is vital to the Zionist regime, but that framework has begun to crumble since Netanyahu plunged the Gaza Strip and the West Bank into a spiral of endless war and infinite cruelty.
That hybrid war could include an attempt by Netanyahu to control the damage caused by pressure on conservative propagandist Charlie Kirk, whose assassination, accelerated the crisis within the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement, Trump’s main social base.
Kirk’s Turning Point USA (TPUSA) movement was funded by neoconservative and pro-Israel institutions such as the David Horowitz Freedom Center. After traveling to Israel, Kirk considered the country a militarized and surveilled fortress, and had recently questioned the official version of October 7 and claimed that the ethnic cleansing of Gaza was underway. He also said that Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent.
A turning point was the TPUSA movement summit last July, which conservative figures such as Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and anti-Zionist Jewish comedian Dave Smith turned into a platform for denouncing the Gaza massacre and the undue influence of the Israeli regime in the US.
Kirk had publicly stated that he could be eliminated by pro-Israeli agents (or by “Zelensky and his gang of gangsters”), and after his assassination, a significant portion of the MAGA universe accused Israel of having executed him.
Interviewed by the US channel Newsmax, Netanyahu denied these “conspiracy theories.” In another interview with MAGA movement leader Steve Bannon on the Breitbart website—a mouthpiece for the most radical right wing sector—Netanyahu claimed that criticizing Israel meant being anti-American and anti-Trump. Bannon responded that US citizens do not care about his opinions on the MAGA movement, adding bluntly: “They are interested in exposing your pathological lies to keep us out of your next war.”
Netanyahu’s other front at the UN was the bloc comprising the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Portugal, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta, and Andorra, which recognized the State of Palestine and whose dignitaries he called “cowardly leaders” who reward the “murder of Jews.”
Why did imperialist countries such as the United Kingdom and France finally recognize the Palestinian state, a fact that Israeli historian Ilan Pappé called a “poisoned chalice”? Pappé described the two-state solution as obsolete and dead, an impractical and immoral formula based on injustice.
He said that this recognition should not be considered a “historic moment” or a “turning point,” although it has “symbolic significance” as a counterattack to the current Israeli strategy of eliminating Palestine as a people, nation, country, and history, and conveys a certain willingness on the part of Western governments to confront Israel and the US over the future of Palestine.
Such recognition implies that the occupied territories now constitute the State of Palestine. Pappé therefore calls for vigilance and deep suspicion when France and its allies talk about “the day after,” as this solution could dangerously become another peace farce that replaces one form of colonialism with another more acceptable to the West.
He recalled that the egocentric Emmanuel Macron reiterated his commitment to Israel and his aversion to Hamas, warning Palestinians that only the Palestinian Authority would represent them and that the new state would be demilitarized. He made no mention of genocide or sanctions against Israel. Furthermore, to claim that Palestinians want a Palestinian Authority Bantustan shows a detachment from reality.
Such recognition is a double-edged sword: as long as Zionism ideologically dominates the reality of historic Palestine—which stretches from the river to the sea—there will be no Palestinian self-determination, freedom, or liberation.
Source: La Jornada, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English