Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used his U.N. General Assembly address Thursday to portray President Donald Trump and the U.S.-Israel alliance as central to the campaign against Iran, praising American military cooperation and crediting Trump with confronting what Netanyahu described as an existential threat.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu placed President Donald Trump at the center of his defense of the war against Iran on Thursday, telling the United Nations that American and Israeli military cooperation had dramatically weakened Tehran’s nuclear and conventional capabilities.
Speaking before the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Netanyahu argued that Israel’s confrontation with Iran was not solely a fight for his country’s survival, but part of a broader struggle that he said also threatened the United States and Western nations.
The address can be watched here.
>”In this battle against the barbarians, we’ve had no greater partner than President Trump,” Netanyahu said. “I thank him. I thank him for his bold leadership.”
Netanyahu said Trump was willing to act militarily because he recognized the potential consequences of allowing Iran’s leadership to continue expanding its weapons capabilities.
“He understood that if left unchallenged, the fanatic ayatollahs who chant ‘Death to America, death to Israel’ would eventually carry out their mad fantasies,” Netanyahu said.
The prime minister portrayed the joint campaign as one of the most consequential examples of U.S.-Israeli military cooperation in the two countries’ relationship.
“So Israel and America acted together not only to protect ourselves, but to save civilization,” Netanyahu said. “Brave American pilots alongside brave Israeli pilots flew joint missions over the skies of Iran.”
Netanyahu said the operations inflicted severe damage on Iran’s armed forces and nuclear infrastructure, telling delegates that Israel and its “great American friends” had “crushed Iran’s army, navy, air force, and nuclear facilities.”
Those descriptions represented Netanyahu’s assessment of the military campaign. Iran continues to retain military forces and has remained at war with the United States and Israel, while the full extent and long-term consequences of damage to its nuclear program remain subjects of continuing assessment. Trump has also publicly defended the strikes against Iran and said preventing Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons was a central objective of the campaign.
Netanyahu tied Thursday’s argument to warnings he has delivered at the United Nations for more than a decade.
He recalled appearing before the General Assembly 14 years earlier and using a visual red line to warn that Iran was moving toward the ability to develop nuclear weapons.
The eventual decision to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, he said, carried enormous operational risks but presented little uncertainty from his perspective.
“Devastating Iran’s nuclear facilities was hard. It was very hard to do,” Netanyahu said.
“But for me, it was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make as prime minister, because if we hadn’t done it, we’d all be dead.”
Netanyahu repeated that argument Thursday while defending the Iran operation amid international criticism. The Associated Press reported that he called the decision to attack Iran “one of the easiest decisions” he had made and argued that Israel’s actions had also protected countries whose representatives opposed his government.
The Israeli leader presented Iran as the organizing power behind what he described as a “seven-front war” confronting Israel since Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
He listed Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Iran itself, Iran-aligned militias in Iraq and Syria, and Palestinian militants in the West Bank among the adversaries Israel has faced.
Netanyahu said Iran itself had launched approximately 1,000 ballistic missiles at Israeli cities and civilians during the conflict.
He used the General Assembly building to illustrate the destructive potential he attributed to those weapons, arguing that Iran’s missile arsenal represented a threat well beyond Israel.
His remarks formed part of a broader speech defending Israel’s military conduct and insisting the country would continue fighting because it had no alternative. Netanyahu told the assembly, “We will continue to win because we have no other choice.”
Trump received repeated praise as Netanyahu described the military partnership.
The prime minister framed the president’s willingness to employ American military power against Iran as a decisive difference in confronting Tehran, saying the two countries acted together after concluding that allowing Iran’s capabilities to grow further posed an unacceptable danger.
The remarks came two days after Trump delivered his own U.N. address, in which he defended the decision to wage war against Iran, demanded greater international economic pressure on Tehran and maintained that Iran would not be permitted to obtain nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu also credited cooperation with Washington for progress on another central Israeli objective since the Oct. 7 attack: recovering the hostages taken into Gaza.
“America and Israel also worked together to bring back our remaining hostages,” Netanyahu told the assembly.
A ceasefire arrangement reached by Israel and Hamas led to the release of the remaining hostages, although broader efforts involving Gaza’s political future, reconstruction and Hamas’ disarmament have remained unresolved.
Netanyahu’s praise of Trump was woven into a wider argument that Israeli and American interests had converged against Iran.
He said Tehran’s leaders did not view Israel as their final objective and argued that anti-American rhetoric from the Iranian government demonstrated a broader threat to the United States.
That framing has long been central to Netanyahu’s case against Iran: that Israeli military action against Tehran serves not merely Israeli security interests but those of Western countries as well.
Thursday’s speech also arrived amid deep international divisions over Israel’s conduct. A large number of delegates walked out as Netanyahu approached the podium, while others remained in the hall. Netanyahu responded by calling those who departed “moral cowards” and argued that some governments criticizing Israel publicly had privately benefited from its campaign against Iran.
The Palestinian mission had encouraged delegations to participate in the walkout. Israel has rejected accusations that its actions in Gaza constitute genocide or war crimes.
Netanyahu nevertheless concentrated a significant portion of his address on the military balance that he said had shifted since the regional conflict began.
Where Iran and its network of aligned groups once surrounded Israel with multiple armed fronts, Netanyahu argued, Israeli operations — reinforced by direct U.S. military participation — had severely weakened that network.
He portrayed that transformation as validation of decisions that had drawn criticism both internationally and within Israel.
The clearest political acknowledgment in the speech went to Trump.
“In this battle against the barbarians, we’ve had no greater partner than President Trump,” Netanyahu said. “I thank him. I thank him for his bold leadership.”
For Netanyahu, the Iran campaign was presented not as an isolated Israeli operation but as a joint demonstration of the strategic alliance between Washington and Jerusalem.
“So Israel and America acted together not only to protect ourselves, but to save civilization,” he said.
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