Three years into the genocide in Gaza, Netanyahu will duck in and out of the U.S., a wanted criminal and blood-soaked pariah

September 24, 2026, New York – In response to Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the United States to address the United Nations, the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following statement:

Benjamin Nentayahu comes to New York while still carrying out a genocide in Gaza. He arrives as a wanted man and a target of the International Criminal Court, which seeks his arrest on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. At the UN, he will address a collection of nations unwilling or unable to hold him accountable. Instead of arresting Netanyahu, the Trump administration has pledged to “dismantle” the ICC and targeted it with sanctions (which we are challenging in court.) In protecting Israel, the Trump administration is protecting itself. Like the Biden administration, Trump gave Israel the means to continue its assault on Gaza, recently approving $2.8 billion in arms sales to Israel, including 40,000 one-ton bombs, which Netanyahu’s government will use to commit further atrocities. Enabling genocide is itself a crime. 

Beneath the crimes and complicity of the world’s powerful governments, the ground has shifted. The Trump administration will protect Netanyahu while he is in the United States, but he is not welcome here. People in the United States support his arrest by a 22-point margin. He cut short his visit in fear of protests, which reflects the massive turn against Israel in this country. This is attributable to the scale and barbarism of Israel’s crimes; its propaganda machine could not successfully spin industrial scale slaughter, the starvation of children, and obliterated cities. But Palestinians themselves are also responsible for the shift: their courageous resistance to Israel and their call for global support via BDS stirred a solidarity movement that was positioned to lead protests against the genocide in Gaza. 

Hope for justice rests with this movement, which has already transformed the politics of this issue. In July 2024, nine months into the genocide in Gaza, Netanyahu spoke to a joint session of Congress and received 50 standing ovations. Today he will duck in and out of the country, a blood-soaked pariah. This is progress that should inspire us as we continue to build support for policies once regarded as unthinkable, such as an arms embargo of Israel and the Not on Our Dime Act. As ever, in the essential struggle for accountability, the people will lead, and the “leaders,” sooner or later, will follow.