What happened at the United Nations this week was telling, and it wasn’t subtle. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood up to speak, a swath of delegates walked out, repeating a pattern from the day before. This isn’t just bad manners, it’s a mirror showing the body’s real priorities.
I’ll explain why the walkout matters, why Netanyahu’s response was smart, and why this episode underscores a larger conservative case against the modern U.N. Then I’ll argue that the United States and our strongest allies need to rethink how much legitimacy and cash we hand to a body that rewards autocrats. I won’t waste time on diplomatic euphemisms.
Delegates at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) stormed out Friday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the stage and prepared to speak. The mass exit came after delegates spent days speaking about the situation in Gaza and proposals to end the nearly two-year war.
Their response to Netanyahu was a stark contrast to the long round of applause that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas received when he addressed the international body virtually on Thursday.
The walkout was both predictable and revealing. You could almost set your watch by which regimes and delegations would applaud the Palestinian Authority and which would refuse to honor Israel’s elected leader. This contrast says more about the General Assembly than it does about Israel.
Netanyahu wasn’t playing for the room; he was playing for an audience that matters—his people, America’s voters, and anyone paying attention outside the hollow ceremony of the UN chamber. He made noise in a contested information space instead of begging for applause from delegations that habitually side with dictators. That strategic clarity is what conservative foreign policy should look like: firm, unapologetic, and audience-aware.
On Friday, as Netanyahu began his address, he was speaking to a nearly empty hall. It is unclear exactly which delegations stayed in the chamber, though U.S. delegates were present.
While he did not have the attention of all the U.N. delegates, Netanyahu revealed in his speech that he was addressing a much wider audience. Netanyahu revealed that his speech was played on speakers surrounding the Gaza Strip and that it was being streamed to Gazans’ cell phones.
Sending the speech into Gaza and onto cell phones was classic political warfare. When your domestic audience and the population across the battlefield hear your leader directly, a theater of empty chairs becomes irrelevant. That kind of focus is preferable to ceding every narrative advantage to hostile groups and institutions.
Contrast that with the ovation for Mahmoud Abbas, whose address accused Israel of “genocide” and demanded recognition while standing in for a non-state entity. The applause for Abbas tells you who the UN applauds: movements that claim victimhood and leverage international sympathy, rather than states that deliver rule of law and pluralism.
When Abbas spoke on Thursday, he slammed Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza, insisted his party is ready to take over the security and governance of the enclave and appealed to President Donald Trump for peace. He also demanded “full membership in the United Nations,” given that several European nations recognized a Palestinian state over the course of the UNGA.
“Palestine is ours. Jerusalem is the jewel of our hearts and our eternal capital. We will not leave our homeland. We will not leave our lands,” Abbas declared.
Then there is the delicious bit of hypocrisy: Abbas had a generous audience but could not attend in person because his visa was refused over terrorism ties. That is the sort of inconsistency that makes people question the organization’s moral compass. When the State Department makes a sound call, the global circus still applauds the same problematic figures.
Abbas may have had a bigger audience in the hall than Netanyahu, but he was unable to see it in person after the State Department refused to approve his visa to travel to New York for the conference, citing support of terrorism.
So what does this add up to for conservatives? It is proof positive that the U.N. no longer performs the narrow, useful role it once did after World War II. Today it often serves as a stage for grievance politics, where repression gets a seat at the table and democracies get lectures. That imbalance isn’t merely annoying; it’s dangerous if we allow it to dictate American foreign policy.
The U.N. regularly elevates human-rights abusers to human-rights committees and lets bad actors distort global narratives. Meanwhile, the United States bankrolls a disproportionate share of the operation and takes diplomatic heat when it declines to join every majority vote. The math and the morals don’t add up.
For Republicans who favor strength over sentiment, this episode is a reminder to prioritize patriotic alliances, strategic clarity, and fiscal restraint. We should keep partnering with democracies and allies that share our values while being skeptical of institutions that reward autocrats. Patriotism means defending truth, even when theater favors lies.
