Brazil's delegation walked out of the United Nations General Assembly chamber in New York on Thursday afternoon (24) during a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to Folha de S.Paulo, the exit was collective: several other delegations also left the hall, repeating the protest staged at last year's session. The prime minister was booed by parts of the audience and answered those who left by calling them "moral cowards".
The scene played out at the 81st General Assembly, which opened with Secretary-General António Guterres acknowledging that the organization is going through a crisis. As Netanyahu entered, he drew boos from the floor and applause from guests and allies in the upper galleries, to the point that the session president, Khalilur Rahman, had to call for order more than once, Folha reported. Early in the speech, the prime minister dared anyone else to go. "If any more moral cowards want to leave, they can leave now", he said, as transcribed by g1, adding that "in defending itself, Israel is also defending many of the countries whose delegates just left this chamber".
Brazil's position
The walkout follows the line President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has held since the war in Gaza began. Opening the general debate on Tuesday (22), Lula named Netanyahu directly and accused him of genocide. In the same speech, in a veiled reference to the United States, he said Brazil "does not fit in anyone's backyard", according to g1.
"Generations of Palestinians will carry the pain and the trauma left by the genocide carried out by the Netanyahu government against women and children in Gaza," the president said before flying back to Brazil the same day.
When Netanyahu spoke, Brazil's seat was held by staff from its diplomatic mission to the UN. Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira was attending an event in support of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, organized by Brazil, Jordan and Spain. Secretary-General Guterres, who is about to leave office, attended the same gathering and was absent from the chamber. Israel has declared persona non grata both Guterres, over his criticism of the war, and Lula himself.
The interests at stake in the chamber
The speech comes amid Netanyahu's growing diplomatic isolation, as g1 noted. Britain and France have adopted measures against products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and French President Emmanuel Macron used his own UN speech to back the recognition of a Palestinian state. In New York, Netanyahu faces Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who wants the city to enforce the arrest warrant the International Criminal Court issued against the prime minister in 2024, part of its investigation into possible war crimes in the Gaza offensive.
From the podium, Netanyahu attacked Mamdani, calling him antisemitic and accusing him of trying to block the visit, and rejected the charges: "Israel did not commit genocide. Israel prevented a genocide". Hours earlier, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had addressed the assembly by video, because the United States denied visas to the Palestinian delegation for the second straight year; he denounced a "colonial scheme" and urged the international community not to allow further massacres. As in the past two years, Netanyahu also used props: he showed a pager, a reference to the operation that detonated Hezbollah devices, and a Starlink unit to accuse Iran of cutting its citizens off from the world. To Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, who says the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967, are Syrian territory, he replied that Jews had been there "since the time of Moses".