Israel condemns United Nations & Secretary-General Guterres

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Israel Katz have launched an unprecedented attack on the United Nations (UN) and its Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the eve of the first anniversary of Gaza’s invasion of Israel.

Netanyahu – addressing the UN General Assembly on 27 September – reminded those having the moral clarity to not walkout on him of the atrocities committed on 7 October 2023:

“Thousands of Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists from Gaza burst into Israel in pickup trucks and on motorcycles, and they committed unimaginable atrocities. They savagely murdered 1,200 people. They raped and mutilated women. They beheaded men. They burned babies alive. They burned entire families alive—babies, children, parents, grandparents, in scenes reminiscent of the Nazi Holocaust.

Hamas kidnapped 251 people from dozens of different countries, dragging them into the dungeons of Gaza. Israel has brought home 154 of these hostages, including 117 who returned alive. I want to assure you, we will not rest until the remaining hostages are brought home too...”

Netanyahu did not hold back as he delivered this stinging rebuke to the United Nations:

“The singling out of the one and only Jewish state continues to be a moral stain on the United Nations. It has made this once-respected institution contemptible in the eyes of decent people everywhere. But for the Palestinians, this UN house of darkness is home court. They know that in this swamp of antisemitic bile, there’s an automatic majority willing to demonize the Jewish state for anything. In this anti-Israel flat-earth society, any false charge, any outlandish allegation can muster a majority.

In the last decade, there have been more resolutions passed against Israel in this hall, in the UN General Assembly, than against the entire world combined. Actually, more than twice as many. Since 2014, this body condemned Israel 174 times.

It condemned all the other countries in the world 73 times. That’s more than 100 extra condemnations for the Jewish state. What hypocrisy. What a double standard. What a joke.

So, all the speeches you heard today, all the hostility directed at Israel this year—it’s not about Gaza; it’s about Israel. It’s always been about Israel. About Israel’s very existence. And I say to you, until Israel, until the Jewish state, is treated like other nations, until this antisemitic swamp is drained, the UN will be viewed by fair-minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous farce.

It was the General Assembly that sought an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 19 January 2023 on the Legal Consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem (Territory) since 1967.

It was Guterres who excluded from the dossier of documents on which the Advisory Opinion was being sought - any documents evidencing the legal right vested in the Jewish People to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in such Territory under the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN’s own Charter.

It was Guterres and UNRWA that exacerbated the civilian deaths in Gaza by failing to move Gaza’s women, children, the sick and elderly to the safety of 50 UN refugee camps outside Gaza

It is Guterres who has deliberately refused to inform the Security Council of the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution - since its publication on 8 June 2022 – as an alternative solution to that contained in the anti-Israel Security Council Resolution 2334 adopted on 23 December 2016 calling for the creation of a new state between Israel and Jordan.

Foreign Minister Katz has banned Guterres from entering Israel: