Several delegations to the United Nations played diplomatic musical chairs during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the General Assembly on Friday morning.
For the first time, the Palestinian seat was empty in the General Assembly hall during a speech by an Israeli premier. The Iranians and Saudis also were no-shows during the talk, with Riyadh’s foreign minister later criticizing Netanayhu for failing to mention the Palestinians as he spoke about the hope of Israeli normalization with the kingdom.
The U.S. delegation raised eyebrows when a gray-haired, bespectacled man—whom JNS has not yet identified—occupied the ambassador’s chair, with two other men sitting to his left. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. envoy to the global body, and Robert Wood, the political special affairs ambassador who tends to take her place at the Security Council, did not appear to be in the room.
Dorothy Shea, the newly-appointed deputy ambassador and former envoy to Lebanon, also appeared to be absent, as did the other two people listed on the U.S. State Department website as among the mission’s “leaders,” Christopher Lu and Lisa Carty, when the camera panned across the U.S. delegation’s section about 19 minutes into Netanyahu’s speech.
JNS sought comment Friday afternoon from the U.S. mission to the United Nations.
The camera did not pan to the U.S. area at any other point during Netanyahu’s speech. It was not immediately clear if any of the five “leaders” of the delegation sat in the chair at another point during Netanyahu’s speech.
“Not only did Kamala Harris fail to attend Prime Minister Netanyahu’s joint address to Congress, but now both Secretary Blinken and the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. failed to attend Prime Minister Netanyahu’s historic speech at the U.N.,” wrote Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), the chair of the House Republican Conference. “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have turned their backs on our most precious ally Israel again and again.”
Tensions between the Biden administration and Netanyahu appeared to run high after Netanyahu rejected a three-week Israel-Lebanon ceasefire proposal on Thursday. U.S. President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron released a statement about the proposal—without mentioning Hezbollah in the joint statement—as Netanyahu was flying to New York ahead of his speech.
Senior U.S. officials told reporters on Thursday night that both Lebanon and Israel were aware of the proposal, and suggested that both were aboard with it.
Netanyahu clarified on Friday morning, before delivering his speech, that he “shared the aims” of the proposal. He did not appear to commit to it.
Hours later, Israel Defense Forces dropped massive bombs on the underground headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut. At press time, it is unknown whether the target of the attack, Hassan Nasrallah, the terror group’s secretary-general, had been killed. Some reports indicated that he was.
The Pentagon stated that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was informed by his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant about the operation while it was underway.
In an interview with NBC News on Friday, Thomas-Greenfield said she agreed with Netanyahu’s claim during his speech that the United Nations focuses too heavily on Israel. She rejected the accusation that the institution is inherently antisemitic.
