United Nations, Sep 25 (IANS) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out from the General Assembly podium against New York Mayor Zohair Mamdani, telling him, "Shame on you", as he accused him of antisemitism.
Taking their verbal feud to the Assembly with an angry outburst against a city mayor, where international leaders are usually the targets, unintentionally raised Mamdani's global profile on Thursday.
He was reacting to Mamdani's allegation against him of committing "genocide" and an absurd threat to arrest the Israeli leader, which he later dropped.
Netanyahu said he was “spitting in the face of truth" with the allegations and fomenting anti-semitism.
"Shame on you for inverting victim and aggressor", he said, asserting that the Israelis and Jews were the real victims of violence.
"Here’s a simple truth", he said, "Israel didn’t commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide, and that’s exactly what Mr Mamdani’s Hamas buddies would have done to us had we not stopped them".
"Since you were elected mayor of this city, many Jews no longer feel safe in New York", he said.
According to New York Police statistics, antisemitic hate crimes increased by eight per cent so far this year – since Mamdani took over as mayor, accounting for nearly 54 per cent of the total 425 bias incidents.
Netanyahu also criticised Mamdani's wife, Rama Duwaji, saying, "Your wife liked a post praising the October 7 massacre [of over 1,000 Israelis by Hamas]. She liked another post saying Tel Aviv shouldn’t exist".
Mamdani did not take part in the protests by several hundred Palestine supporters, but several of his allies did.
Police arrested more than 100 people who participated in one of the protests near the UN, blocking the road leading to it.
They included prominent Democratic Socialists from the same leftist wing of the Democratic Party as Mamdani, some of whom had received his endorsement in elections.
On Wednesday, Mamdani symbolically planted an olive tree in his official mansion with Palestinian families from Gaza.
Israelis have been accused of destroying olive groves of Palestinian farmers.
Mamdani issued a statement reacting to Netanyahu's accusations and cited an International Criminal Court warrant against him.
"As he has done time and again, Prime Minister Netanyahu used his speech to repeat baseless lies meant to sanitise his genocide of Palestinians", he said.
"Yet no lie can change the fact that he remains the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity", he said.
The court issued the warrant in a case brought against Netanyahu by South Africa.
US President Donald Trump, in his speech on Tuesday, hit out at the court, asking all countries to shun it.
India is not a party to the agreement setting up the court and giving it legitimacy.
--IANS
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