Populism at the UN: comparing Netanyahu’s and Abbas’s speeches, 2010–19

BRITISH JOURNAL OF MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES

Populism impacts policy choices and may contribute to fuelling crises and limiting the prospects for conflict resolution. This paper applies a multidimensional populism theoretical framework to compare quantitatively and qualitatively 18 speeches by Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations General Assembly between 2010 and 2019. Our analysis shows that while both Abbas and Netanyahu use populist language—mostly focused on antagonistic, moral and idealised depictions of the ‘people’ and the ‘other’—the latter consistently displayed a greater density of populist references in his UN speeches over the period analysed. Netanyahu’s discourses were both more aggressive and exclusionary and made more allusions to religion and securitisation than those of the Palestinian leader. His framing essentialised the ‘us’ (‘the Jewish people’) as threatened by an ‘enemy’; what he called ‘militant Islam’. By contrast, Abbas referred more to borders as a requirement for statehood. Their different communicative frames and language suggest discrepant worldviews. Abbas’s speeches reflected a more ‘liberal’ conception of international relations, relying more on international cooperation, institutions, and regulation to resolve the Palestinian question, while Netanyahu conveyed a realpolitik stance and stressed his concerns with external threats and willingness to act unilaterally.

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