The News
Israel’s growing isolation on the world stage has become an early focal point of the United Nations General Assembly, which is taking place in New York this week, and where Netanyahu is expected to speak Friday.
The criticism has been “intense,” Politico wrote: Brazil’s president described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “collective punishment,” while Colombia’s leader said the conflict was a genocide.
Others aimed their criticism directly at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has so far pushed back on their censure by maintaining Israel’s right to self defense. There is a growing concern that Netanyahu is stalling on reaching a ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza and could pitch the region into all-out war.
SIGNALS
UN offers a space for countries to be critical without action
The UN is not able to force Israel to stop its military campaign in Gaza — a limitation to the international body’s powers to maintain whatever world order most countries agree on, The Wall Street Journal noted. This makes the UN a space “where countries can easily vote for resolutions against Israel’s government without severing diplomatic ties or imposing other consequences on the nation.” The five permanent members of the UN Security Council — including the US, Israel’s greatest ally — also have veto powers, which in effect means they can “dictate international politics in their favour,” a foreign policy expert noted in The New Arab.
Israel’s biggest ally is struggling to deal with Netanyahu
In the year since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel sparked the war in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently ignored “the advice of his nation’s most important ally,” the Financial Times wrote. That said, US President Joe Biden has been seemingly reluctant to push the Israeli leader, “both because of his emotional attachment to Israel and domestic political calculations.” If Biden had reacted more strongly sooner, then it’s possible a ceasefire deal with Hamas may have been agreed, and the escalation in Lebanon may have been avoided, an Israeli diplomat speculated in Haaretz. Instead, Biden’s approach has been “arguably the flattest learning curve in the history of international relations,” he wrote.
Netanyahu finds growing approval at home despite rising tension elsewhere
The Israeli leader’s Friday speech will stand in contrast to his address delivered a year ago, when Netanyahu presented a vision of peace for the Middle East. That vision is now “in tatters,” The Associated Press wrote: The regional conflict has expanded, while Netanyahu himself has become increasingly viewed as a destabilizing force. Despite international opprobrium, Netanyahu’s domestic approval ratings have improved in recent weeks, rising from historic lows following the Oct. 7 attacks, the Financial Times noted. “A lot of people come out of it thinking Netanyahu has... regained Israel’s footing,” an analyst told the outlet.