Mother Jones
New Yorkers Lined the Streets Against Benjamin Netanyahu’s Visit
In the early months of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the streets of New York were filled with protests. Hundreds of people were arrested, bridges and tunnels were blocked; the Statue of Liberty was at one point taken over. In the ensuing years, with Trump’s repression of the movement for Palestine—deporting, jailing, and otherwise silencing many of its leaders—things have gotten quieter.
But on September 24, when Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at the United Nations General Assembly, it didn’t look that way. Hundreds of New Yorkers formed a human chain across a road leading to the United Nations complex as Netanyahu was about to begin his speech. Then, hours later, thousands of people filed into the surrounding streets carrying Palestinian flags for a massive march of well over a thousand people. “We’re getting 2024 numbers!” one participant said.
Though New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani did not join the protests himself, he told CNN on Monday that he’s not particularly enthused about Netanyahu’s presence in his city either.
“When it comes to Benjamin Netanyahu, I have described him as I believe him to be: a war criminal and an architect of a horrific genocide of the Palestinian people,” Mamdani said. “If the International Criminal Court deems someone worthy of an arrest because of a violation of those laws, then who are we to say that anyone should be above that? And I think very clearly that everyone should be held accountable to it.”
Among the protesters were local elected officials like city councilor Chi Ossé and several high-profile progressive congressional candidates like Darializa Chevalier, who won a hotly contested election for New York’s 13th congressional district; Chris Rabb, the nominee for a House district that includes much of Philadelphia; Melat Kiros, who won a major upset in the race for a Democratic-leaning district in Colorado; and Adam Hamawy, the Democratic candidate to succeed retiring New Jersey Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman. Celebrities like Hannah Einbinder and Susan Sarandon joined the protest—both, alongside Chevalier, were arrested.
“There’s a group of folks coming into Congress who are not being tethered to corporate money and to institutionalists,” said Rabb, a state legislator from Philadelphia who won the backing of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Democratic Party notables in his primary win for a solidly Democratic seat earlier this year.
“We’re going to use all of our authority as members of Congress to speak up against injustice and use everything in our toolbox to fight these atrocities and the people who allowed them to happen,” Rabb added as he sat in the middle of the street, linking arms with Hamawy.
“There’s no such thing as progressive if it doesn’t include Palestinian freedom,” Stefanie Fox of Jewish Voice for Peace said.
Though local and state-level progressive elected officials don’t have the power to enforce the International Criminal Court’s war crimes warrant against Netanyahu, an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement who identified herself as Nas Issa proposed other moves, including “divesting city pension funds from Israel bonds, cracking down on illegal sales of stolen Palestinian land happening in the city, investigating the charitable status of charities that profit from sending military supplies to settlements,” and ensuring cities and states that work with ICE cease to do so.
Two weeks ago, President Trump approved yet another $2.8 billion sale of weapons to Israel. The killing in Gaza has not stopped. But on both sides of the wall of the United Nations building, few people seemed to want to hear Benjamin Netanyahu attempt to justify it.