The ritual.
Later today, he will once again take his place at the UN General Assembly podium. The suit will sit on him just so, makeup tones will blur the marks of time and reality, the English — oh, the English — and the words will be grand.
The eternity of the Jewish people, he will say with pathos. A fateful hour, he will say. Israeli heroism, of course.
Alongside the words there may also be a slide, perhaps another gimmick. And even if not, we will still be able to feel the gust of history. When it comes to appearances, he has never disappointed. The packaging has always gleamed.
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Netanyahu: The suit will sit on him just so, makeup tones will blur the marks of time and reality
(Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images)
Over the years, Netanyahu has had remarkable moments at the General Assembly, moments when you could feel proud to be Israeli. Credit where credit is due. And even where it is not, he takes it.
In 2009, after returning to power, a day after Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech, he cried “shame” while holding maps of the Auschwitz extermination camp.
In 2012 came another historic speech, when he spoke about the red line on Iran’s nuclear program, complete with the drawing of a bomb and fuse.
In 2015, there were 40 seconds of silence to illustrate the UN’s silence in the face of Iran’s intentions.
In 2017, he addressed the Iranian people in Persian: “You are not our enemies.”
Prophetic.
To me, the most significant speech at the UN General Assembly was in 2023, on the eve of the peace with Saudi Arabia that never came, on the eve of October 7.
There was something prophetic about it.
Because there they were, the two maps of the Middle East he presented: the map of Israel and its allies, the “blessing,” and the map of Iran and its allies, the “curse” — and they would very quickly become reality.
And there was the blindness.
Forty times he said the word peace, on the eve of disaster.
And there was the conception. He attacked the Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas, but not a word about Hamas.
How can a man who cannot persuade the majority in Israel persuade the world?
There was even artificial intelligence. He warned, with no small irony, about the disruption of democracy, the manipulation of public opinion and wars driven by AI on an unimaginable scale.
Everything was there, except for the divided people he had left behind, just before everything, everything, changed.
In hindsight, the leader we had known was no longer there either.
Last.
This time, at the UN General Assembly, it will be different. This will probably be his last appearance on an international stage.
The last dance.
“The last dance” is a concept full of grace, a romantic reminder that the beauty of things is heightened precisely because they are ending.
Known for his gimmicks during UN speeches
(Photo: Reuters)
Except that for most of us, this will be one appearance too many.
He is a leader past his time.
Every passing day erodes something: his legacy, his popularity, his usefulness.
Like an aging soccer player — a Ronaldo of sorts — searching on the field for lost glory. Searching for it for himself, and destroying the team.
Weak.
His job on the UN stage will be to persuade a hostile world that sees him as a red flag, and in effect to broadcast to us, as usual, what a statesman of stature he is.
He is doomed to fail at both.
How can a man who cannot persuade the majority in Israel persuade the world?
And when he is there, hounded, almost heartbreaking in his stubbornness, carrying a bloody history on his back, vilified by the majority even when he acts — that is the price of a lack of trust — we will ask ourselves: How much does he represent the Israeli spirit? How much does this ostracized man, threatened with warrants, represent our face on the world stage?
The Jewish people are a phoenix. A people that survives, that prevails.
And him?
A leader who ignored warnings and did not wake up.
We are a people that chooses life. He is fighting to keep us behind with him, with his polarization and his troubles.
We are a people whose roots and values lie in the Bible.
His have been lost.
At most, they now amount to the four legs of a chair. Sometimes fewer.
In whose name does a weak man — weak not because of his age or his health, but because of his surrender to inequality, violence and immorality — travel overseas?
In the name of what ideology?
In the name of what people?
When he stands on that stage, we will ask:
What does he have to do with us?