Another Liar at the Hall of Liars

Why Israel doesn’t need speeches at the UN—it needs victory.

Another year, another Israeli prime minister on the podium of the United Nations to plead with a hall of liars, hypocrites, and anti-Semites. Netanyahu’s latest speech was no different: part courtroom defence, part campaign rally, part fantasy of peace. Yes, there were moments of truth—moments where he rightly condemned the West’s betrayal and the lunacy of a Palestinian state. But the very act of standing there to explain, to justify, to try once more to win legitimacy from the world, exposed the deeper sickness: Israel is led not by statesmen who fight to win, but by PR men who fight to explain. And so Netanyahu joins the cast: another liar at the hall of liars.

Netanyahu went point by point through the blood libels hurled against Israel: genocide, starvation, cruelty. He tried to rebut them with logic, explaining that Israel does not commit genocide, that Israel actually feeds Gaza, and that the reality is the exact opposite of the accusations. But this is precisely the trap our enemies set for us—to make us waste our breath answering charges so preposterous they do not even merit a reply. The only thing such explanations achieve is to dignify the lie.

The real question is not whether Israel is guilty of genocide. It is why the Prime Minister of Israel feels compelled to stand before the circus of the United Nations and explain his war at all. If the war is just, why does it require justification? Did Churchill stop to explain to the League of Nations why Britain needed to defeat the Nazis? Did he go on the radio to assure the public that Britain was not committing genocide against Germany? Of course not. A just war is not won through explanations; it is won through victory. And the only explanation the Israeli public deserves is this: why has that victory not yet been secured? Perhaps because our leaders spend more time explaining than winning.

If Netanyahu’s defensive posture before the UN wasn’t bad enough, the Israeli opposition rushed to add its own poison. Yair Lapid tweeted that the world saw in Netanyahu’s speech a “tired and whining prime minister,” full of gimmicks. He complained that Netanyahu did not present a plan to bring home the hostages, did not show how the war would be finished, and did not explain why, after two years, Hamas has not yet surrendered. He concluded by saying that instead of halting a diplomatic “tsunami,” Netanyahu had worsened Israel’s standing.

This is what I call the inner blood libel. The world levels its outer blood libels against Israel—genocide, starvation, crimes against humanity—and in response, our own opposition invents an inner one: that the Prime Minister himself is to blame for not sacrificing enough, not grovelling enough, not rushing to offer our own surrender on a silver platter. That is what Lapid truly means by “ending the war”: surrendering. Yielding to the demands of Europe, the demands of the world, and the demands of the Palestinians. His real complaint is not that Netanyahu has failed to achieve victory, but that Netanyahu has failed to capitulate.

Now, it is a legitimate question to ask why, after two years, the war has not been won. That is the question the Prime Minister owes his people an answer to. But Lapid’s answer is so idiotic, so self-sacrificial, so profoundly immoral, that it manages to make Netanyahu look good by comparison. And this is the tragic choice we face in Israel today: between a leader who explains instead of winning, and an opposition that prefers surrender to victory.

To his credit, Netanyahu did strike the right note when he turned his fire on the West. He charged Western leaders with weakness—but even that word is too kind. What we see in Europe and North America today is not weakness but immorality: a self-sacrificial instinct that has, throughout history, always preferred to punish the Jews as a way of solving its own problems. That is the true track record of Europe. If you want to summarise two thousand years of European “policy” toward the Jewish people, it is precisely this: blame the Jews, sacrifice the Jews, punish the Jews, so that others may continue in their corruption undisturbed.

On this point, Netanyahu was right. This is the mentality we should have more of: not apologising, not explaining, but charging the so-called enlightened world with the full weight of its hypocrisy.

He was also right to call out the so-called “recognition” of a Palestinian state. That vote is nothing less than a mark of shame on the West, an indelible stain on governments that once claimed to stand for liberty and civilisation. On this point, Netanyahu spoke with clarity, and he was absolutely right. He was right, too, in exposing the lie of the “two-state solution.” Gaza was already, in practice, a Palestinian state—and the result was October 7th. The proof is written in blood.

Netanyahu thundered from the podium: “Giving the Palestinians a state one mile from Jerusalem after October 7th is like giving al-Qaeda a state one mile from New York City after September 11th. This is sheer madness. It’s insane, and we won’t do it.” He is absolutely right. It is insane.

But here is the bitter truth: this “sheer madness” is Netanyahu’s own political legacy. It is his life’s work. He helped create the very reality he now condemns. He voted for the 2005 disengagement that handed Gaza over to the Palestinians. He sat in the government that implemented it. Even earlier, in 1996, he shook Yasser Arafat’s hand and left Oslo in place. As prime minister, he had all the legitimacy, all the power to cancel Oslo, to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, to end the lie at its root. He never did.

So why stand at the UN today denouncing the same madness you helped to build? Why rail against anti-Semites as if their opinion matters, as if a smart speech can outsmart their hatred? They will not change. They are not fooled by gimmicks or clever metaphors. The problem is not their minds. The problem is our policy. Fix your own mistakes. Take responsibility. Stop begging for legitimacy from those who despise you.

Netanyahu concluded by holding out the dream of new peace treaties: with Syria, with Lebanon, and perhaps eventually with other nations in the region and beyond. But here again, the framing is wrong. A proud Israeli prime minister should not stand on the UN stage and long for peace as if it were some prize to be won. The message should be simple: if you want peace with Israel, you can have it—on one condition. Abandon your jihad. Give up your aim to destroy us. Then we will trade, cooperate, and live side by side.

But it must never sound as though Israel needs peace from them. We don’t need Lebanon’s problems. We don’t need Syria’s problems. These nations have waged war after war against us for 80 years. They are the ones who should hunger for peace—not us. We already have peace, prosperity, and life. They do not. That is the message of true leadership.

And so, what was this speech in the end? Delivered in a hall unworthy of an Israeli prime minister—an assembly of liars, hypocrites, and anti-Semites—it had some good elements. Yes, he declared that Israel will not accept a Palestinian state. Yes, he named the Western betrayal for what it is. But from the very man who enabled the Palestinian state in Gaza, who shook Arafat’s hand, who kept Oslo alive—it is meaningless. Overall, it was another exercise in words, at a place where words are worse than useless. And perhaps that is the real tragedy: that a liar has finally found his true home, among liars.

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