Netanyahu will address the UN General Assembly in September, says Israel’s incoming UN ambassador

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will speak at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on Sept. 26 or 27, according to Danny Danon, who is returning to New York as Israel’s ambassador to the UN, replacing Gilad Erdan.

“We are preparing the ground for the visit of the prime minister,” said Danon. “I believe he will arrive – we don’t know what will happen tomorrow in Israel – but the plans are that he will come and speak in front of the General Assembly.”

This will be the 79th session of UNGA, which opens on Sept. 10.

Danon said the upcoming UNGA meeting will be “dominated by the Palestinian issue.”

“The theme ‘Leaving no one behind: acting together for the advancement of peace, sustainable development and human dignity for present and future generations’ has been proposed for the general debate at the seventy-ninth session,” the United Nations stated.

Netanyahu has consistently addressed UNGA during his nearly 17 years as prime minister of Israel. His most recent speech at the UN was at the 2023 General Assembly, occurring just two weeks before the Hamas attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

In that speech, he spoke at great length about the peace treaties that Israel, under then-U.S. President Donald Trump, had forged with several Arab countries, and said that the State of Israel was on the "cusp" of another such treaty with Saudi Arabia.

“I believe that we are at the cusp of an even more dramatic breakthrough: an historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Such a peace will go a long way to ending the Arab-Israeli conflict. It will encourage other Arab states to normalize their relations with Israel. It will enhance the prospects of peace with the Palestinians. It will encourage a broader reconciliation between Judaism and Islam, between Jerusalem and Mecca, between the descendants of Isaac and the descendants of Ishmael,” Netanyahu said at the time.

Netanyahu’s speech at the UN General Assembly will follow his recent address to a special joint session of Congress in the United States, where he received 55 standing ovations.

In the speech, he highlighted the enormous divide between Israel and the terrorists seeking the destruction of the Jewish state.

“For Israel, every civilian death is a tragedy. For Hamas, it's a strategy. They actually want Palestinian civilians to die, so that Israel will be smeared in the international media and be pressured to end the war before it's won,” Netanyahu told Congress.

“This would enable Hamas to survive another day, and as they vowed, to carry out October 7th again and again and again. Well, I want to assure you, no matter what pressure is brought to bear, I will never allow that to happen.”

Whether Netanyahu will meet with Biden on the sidelines of UNGA is still unclear.