ADVERTISEMENT
In 2017, shortly after becoming Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres said: “Israel needs to be treated like any other UN member state”.
It was a solid start for someone who promised equality for the one Jewish State. Even in his personal manifesto, released as part of the election process,
Guterres specifically related to the need to eliminate antisemitism in one of the issues of his five-point plan toward the UN’s engagement in a culture of preventing crises.
Unfortunately, Guterres’ real colours were demonstrated in the days after the massacre that took place on 7 October, when Hamas mass murder and rape squads infiltrated Israel to murder over 1,200 people, injure thousands and kidnap 250 Israelis and people of other nationalities, in the worst single day of bloodshed for the Jewish people since the end of the Holocaust.
Before the blood of Israelis was even dry, and weeks before a single boot of the Israel Defense Forces was in Gaza, Guterres could find little to no sympathy for the beleaguered Jewish State.
Loosened lips and real views on display
The UN Secretary-General said the mass murder "did not happen in a vacuum," because Palestinians have been subjected to 56 years of "suffocating occupation". He also said that he is "deeply concerned about clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing in Gaza."
These are the types of expressions or reactions that Guterres has not used on any other conflict on Earth. Even more startlingly, he was shocked when there was pushback from many Europeans and Americans over his remarks.
Guterres, in word and deed — ever since Israel started its war of self-defence against terrorists who say openly they would commit the 7 October massacre “again and again” — has tried to bar Israel from prosecuting the war successfully and defeating its enemies, in direct opposition to his own charter.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres leaves the chamber after attending a meeting of the UN Security Council, in New York, March 2024 AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez
However, it appears these comments are not unique, they just received more attention than equally scurrilous remarks, seemingly justifying terrorism, he made in the past.
In June 2022, Guterres spoke at a conference of countries that donate to UNRWA. He said then: "Imagine yourself in this situation, imagine what you would feel and imagine what would happen when someone from ISIS came to you and said, 'What are you doing, persevering in hope, why don't you join us and try to do whatever you want', you know, the things that happen more and more with terrorist organizations around the world."
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres says 'clear violations of humanitarian law' in Gaza Does Israel have a vision for the day after Hamas?
It is clear that now Guterres is in his second and final term, and at the age of 74 with few political pretensions, his lips have been loosened and his real views are on display.
Why adopt Hamas' lies?
Worse than his initial heartless comments, Guterres appears to be on a mission to ensure that the State of Israel loses in its war against Hamas, a terrorist organization whose charter aspires to the genocide of Jews all over the world, and other Islamic Republic of Iran proxies.
Chapter VII, Article 51 of the United Nations Charter reads: “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations.”
Guterres, in word and deed — ever since Israel started its war of self-defence against terrorists who say openly they would commit the 7 October massacre “again and again” — has tried to bar Israel from prosecuting the war successfully and defeating its enemies, in direct opposition to his own charter.
Hamas understands that it can not win on the battlefield, so it tries to win in the media, in the court of global public opinion, and in international institutions where it can weaken Israel’s ability to win in its war against genocidal terrorism. Guterres, unfortunately, appears to be the poster boy for these efforts.
Israeli security forces examine the site hit by a rocket fired from Lebanon, in Kiryat Shmona, March 2024 AP Photo/Ariel Schalit
In the over six months since the attack, Israel has made impressive gains against Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It has already killed around 15,000 terrorists and is moving quickly towards their full defeat.
Even if we take the notoriously faked and unreliable numbers of the Hamas-run Health Ministry as fact, the ratio of combatant to civilian is around one-to-one. The international average is one combatant to nine civilians, so Israel is acting nine times better than any other nation at war in recent years.
The polls are clear: While at war with Israel, Hamas defeated Abbas and Fatah These are the paradigm shifts Israel urgently needs
These are the facts, but one would not know it from Guterres and many of the bodies under his control, who systematically ignore Israel’s unprecedented warning system to civilians to leave arenas of conflict, and accept and adopt the Hamas lies that only civilians are targeted by the IDF.
Our collective better future is at stake
Guterres has been quick to accept these lies even when they have been proven untrue, like the now infamous Al-Ahli hospital explosion which was initially blamed on Israel but was in fact caused by an errant Islamic Jihad missile aimed at Israeli civilians, the unfortunate deaths due to a stampede attacking humanitarian aid trucks and the accusations of mass rape of Palestinian women at Shifa Hospital.
The latter was the result of one woman’s claims that she herself has now admitted were lies to gain international sympathy.
ADVERTISEMENT
Hamas understands that it can not win on the battlefield, so it tries to win in the media, in the court of global public opinion, and in international institutions where it can weaken Israel’s ability to win in its war against genocidal terrorism.
Guterres, unfortunately, appears to be the poster boy for these efforts. He accepts every Hamas statistic, every Jihadi lie and clears the way for any attack against the Jewish State in the international forums under his control.
It is now clear that Guterres used sympathy for Israel’s uniquely isolated position at the UN to gain his position and win over friends in Europe and the US, who pay a disproportionate amount of his organization’s budget. However, now he has no need for it; he has shown his only goal appears to be a defeated and weakened Israel.
Thankfully, this doesn’t appear to be working and Israel is on course for victory over terrorism, which can then be turned into peace, security and stability for the people of the region.
If Israel wins, the Palestinian people will be free of their authoritarian Islamist leaders, pragmatic Sunni states in the Middle East and beyond who have common cause with Israel against Iran will sign normalization agreements, and there will be historic peace in the region.
ADVERTISEMENT
This is the better future that is at stake in this war. It is one that Israel desperately seeks, and one the UN Secretary-General tries desperately to prevent.
Nave Dromi is the director of the Middle East Forum Israel office.
At Euronews, we believe all views matter. Contact us at view@euronews.com to send pitches or submissions and be part of the conversation.
ADVERTISEMENT
At least 500 migrants and rough sleepers have been put on chartered buses and moved from the French capital.
Some NGOs claim the government spearheaded the campaign to make the French capital "more presentable" for the upcoming Olympic Games.
The government says the recent relocations were prompted by emergency accommodation centres reaching saturation.
But regional mayors are expressing their outrage at the new arrivals, with the Mayor of Orléans Serge Grouard stating the timing of the relocations, which lead into the July sporting event, is "disturbing".
Watch the full report in the player above.
ADVERTISEMENT
An international team of doctors visiting a hospital in central Gaza was prepared for the worst. But the gruesome impact Israel’s war against Hamas is having on Palestinian children still left them stunned.
One toddler died from a brain injury caused by an Israeli strike that fractured his skull. His cousin, an infant, is still fighting for her life with part of her face blown off by the same strike.
An unrelated 10-year-old boy screamed out in pain for his parents, not knowing that they were killed in the strike. Beside him was his sister, but he didn’t recognise her because burns covered almost her entire body.
These gut-wrenching casualties were described to The Associated Press by Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive-care doctor from Jordan, following a 10-hour overnight shift at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the town of Deir al-Balah.
Haj-Hassan, who has extensive experience in Gaza and regularly speaks out about the war’s devastating effects, was part of a team that recently finished a two-week stint there.
After nearly six months of war, Gaza’s health sector has been decimated. Roughly a dozen of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are only partially functioning.
The rest have either shut down or are barely functioning after they ran out of fuel and medicine, were surrounded and raided by Israeli troops, or were damaged in fighting.
That leaves hospitals such as Al-Aqsa Martyrs caring for an overwhelming number of patients with limited supplies and staff. The majority of its intensive care unit beds are occupied by children, including infants wrapped in bandages and wearing oxygen masks.
“I spend most of my time here resuscitating children,” Haj-Hassan said after a recent shift. “What does that tell you about every other hospital in the Gaza Strip?”
Mustafa Abu Qassim, a nurse from Jordan who was part of the visiting team, said he was shocked by the overcrowding.
“When we look for patients, there are no rooms,” he said. “They are in the corridors on a bed, a mattress, or on a blanket on the floor.”
“It’s just miserable,” he said.
Before the war, the hospital had a capacity of around 160 beds, according to the World Health Organization. Now there are some 800 patients, yet many of the hospital's 120 staff members are no longer able to come to work.
Israel’s bombardment and offensive in Gaza have killed more than 32,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 75,000 more in the territory of 2.3 million people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Roughly half of Gaza's 2.3 million people are 17 or younger, the UN'ss agency for children estimates.
Israel holds Hamas responsible for non-combatants' deaths and injuries because the militants in Gaza operate from within civilian areas. It says over one-third of the dead are Hamas militants, though it has not backed up the claim with evidence.