– Syed Azharuddin
As the 80th United Nations General Assembly convenes in New York, the Israeli project of territorial expansion and diplomatic immunity is colliding head-on with a resurgent global consensus. Benjamin Netanyahu, once certain of Israel’s unassailable alliances, now stands before a chamber that no longer treats his speeches as unchallengeable doctrine. What is unfolding is not a contest of mere rhetoric but a struggle over legitimacy, accountability, and the future of Gaza itself.
Nothing underscores isolation more starkly than the loss of diplomatic cover, and that is precisely what Netanyahu now faces. France has formally recognised the State of Palestine, joining a cascade of announcements from the United Kingdom, Canada, Portugal, Andorra, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta, and Monaco – each declaration made from the UN rostrum despite Washington’s continued opposition. These moves are not symbolic niceties; they are fractures in a Western consensus that once shielded Israel from censure. Even Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, used his UN address to explain why his government had formally recognised Palestine, aligning Canberra with an emerging bloc of European and Global-South voices. From Andorra to Belgium and Portugal, ministers echoed the same message: the time for equivocation has passed.
The resistance to Netanyahu’s narrative was visible in the chamber itself. Dozens of delegates rose and walked out as he began his speech, a public rebuke rarely seen in the General Assembly. Israel’s UN envoy protested that the Palestinian mission had orchestrated the action, but the empty seats and cameras trained on them carried a power that no press release could blunt. Iran’s delegation left its chair conspicuously vacant, instead placing photographs of civilians killed in Israeli strikes where diplomats might have sat – a tableau of absence that accused more sharply than any speech.
The oratory that followed deepened the political isolation. Ireland’s prime minister, Micheál Martin, denounced Israel’s war as “an affront to human dignity and decency,” while Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye described a “humanitarian catastrophe” demanding immediate action. Colombia’s Gustavo Petro went further, rejecting the very premise of ethnic or divine exceptionalism: “There is no superior race. The ‘chosen people of God’ is all of humanity,” he said to sustained applause. Kenya’s President William Ruto linked the crisis to structural inequities in global governance, calling for fair African representation on the Security Council. From the Global South to Europe, the moral indictment was unmistakable.
Outside the marble halls, resistance has opened another front at sea. The Global Sumud Flotilla – a civilian convoy of more than 50 vessels carrying food and medical aid from over forty nations – set sail to challenge Israel’s long-standing blockade of Gaza. When several of its boats were harassed by drones in international waters, Spain, Italy and Greece dispatched naval ships to escort them, declaring their presence a humanitarian obligation. In Madrid, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez compared Israel’s blockade to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and urged international sporting bodies to bar Israeli participation. Italian ports, meanwhile, have become centres of solidarity: tens of thousands marched through Rome, Milan, Bologna, and Turin, while dockworkers refused to load or unload cargo linked to Israeli companies. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, though cautious, authorised a naval vessel to shadow the flotilla – nominally for rescue purposes but signalling a shift that Rome can no longer disguise.
This maritime challenge is more than a humanitarian gesture. It forces a choice on Netanyahu: intercept the flotilla and deepen Israel’s pariah status, or let it pass and concede the symbolic breach of a siege that has lasted more than sixteen years. Either option undermines the aura of absolute control that the idea of “Greater Israel” requires.
Multilateral action is also hardening. The newly formed Hague Group – a coalition of more than 30 states – met on the UN’s sidelines to explore coordinated sanctions and a “special committee against apartheid” modelled on the anti-apartheid mechanisms of the 1970s. Such initiatives turn episodic outrage into institutional pressure, suggesting that Israel’s diplomatic quarantine could be built into the very architecture of international law.
Yet the momentum is not universal, and the silences speak loudly. India, China, and Russia – nations long counted as sympathetic to the Palestinian cause – have limited themselves to guarded calls for restraint and dialogue. Their reluctance to match words with action creates a conspicuous gap, especially as smaller states such as Sri Lanka issue unequivocal condemnations and even Syria, once shunned as a “pariah” regime, openly supports Gaza’s right to resist. That these geopolitical heavyweights remain cautious while countries with far less leverage speak boldly exposes the cold calculus that still shapes global diplomacy.
The pattern, however, is undeniable. Recognition by major Western powers erodes Israel’s claim to a veto over Palestinian legitimacy. Civil society is no less decisive: vast demonstrations sweep Italian streets, solidarity concerts fill squares from Cape Town to São Paulo, and universities across Europe and North America host encampments demanding divestment. What began as diplomatic friction has become a broad moral mobilisation, uniting youth movements, trade unions, and faith leaders who only a decade ago rarely shared a platform.
Recognition, of course, does not stop the bombs. No binding ceasefire resolution emerged from this UN session, and Israel’s military campaign grinds on. Some governments hedge their positions with conditions – insisting that Hamas be excluded from any future government or that Israeli hostages be released – revealing that even in this moment of unprecedented alignment, political caution still tempers moral clarity. But legitimacy, once lost, is rarely regained. Military power can occupy territory; it cannot compel respect.
For Netanyahu, the contrast is stark. A year ago, he could count on quiet support from Washington, muted criticism from Europe, and strategic indifference from much of Asia. Today he confronts a growing coalition that spans continents and political traditions: liberal democracies, African republics, Latin American progressives, even segments of the Jewish diaspora appalled by the devastation of Gaza. Each new recognition of Palestinian statehood, each flotilla that sails under international escort, chips away at the myth that Israel can expand without consequence.
The meaning of this moment reaches beyond the immediate war. What is at stake is the long-standing belief that Israel, by virtue of Western alliance and military superiority, could remain immune to the rules applied to other states. That belief is eroding in real time. Power without legitimacy is brittle, and the Greater Israel project – dependent on the assumption of permanent impunity – now confronts a world less willing to indulge it.
If the tide holds – if recognition hardens into legal mechanisms, if the flotillas continue to breach the blockade, if the protests become sustained economic pressure – Netanyahu’s place in history may be defined less by the territory he claimed than by the isolation he provoked. The world is not rallying behind Palestine out of passing sentiment. It is rallying because the era of unaccountable force is being challenged, and the principle that no state stands above international law is re-emerging with unexpected force.
Israel retains overwhelming military capacity, but legitimacy is the currency of the 21st century. Without it, alliances fray, markets hesitate, and even victories taste hollow. At the United Nations this September, the applause for Palestinian recognition and the almost empty seats during Netanyahu’s speech told the story: the Greater Israel myth is meeting a united world, and the Prime Minister of Israel is finding that the isolation he once dismissed as impossible is fast becoming the central fact of his political legacy.
