Benjamin Netanyahu did not hold back, blasting New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani in a scathing video message ahead of his United Nations appearance. Shame on you, Netanyahu said directly to the mayor, accusing him of backing Hamas, the group he described as the terrorist monsters who butchered our people, and of stoking riots against New York's Jewish community. He promised to take the fight to the UN itself, vowing to tell the truth about Israel's soldiers and, just as pointedly, the truth about Mamdani. The remarks landed just as Netanyahu prepared to travel to New York for his General Assembly address, setting up a tense collision between two of the highest-profile figures on opposite sides of the Gaza debate.

The clash traces back to a CNN interview earlier in the week, when Mamdani called Netanyahu a war criminal and the architect of what he described as a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people, while also backing enforcement of the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant against him. It is not the first time the two have collided. Back in July, a viral video from Mamdani accusing Israel of war crimes sparked outrage from Jewish organizations, who accused the mayor of ignoring Hamas's October 7 attack entirely and failing in his duty to represent all New Yorkers. With Netanyahu now set to address the UN directly, the long-simmering feud between City Hall and Jerusalem looks headed for its most public confrontation yet.