António Guterres’s remarks about Israeli actions are obscene.

Ruthie Blum

(JNS)

It’s one thing for terrorist regimes and their fellow travelers to condemn Israel for fighting back forcefully against the mortal threats in and along its borders. It’s even logical for those entities to bemoan the assassination of the mass murderers attempting to fulfill genocidal, hegemonic aspirations through the slaughter of Jews.

But when the knee-jerk reaction of self-proclaimed “human rights” champions with heavy titles and hefty budgets is to blame the Jewish state for defending itself, while making the free world a safer place, a more dangerous phenomenon is at work.

Nor does equating Israel with enemies bent on its destruction disguise the antisemitism at play. An expert at this transparent ploy is U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres.

Following the Israeli airstrikes on Friday night in the Dahieh suburb of Beirut, Guterres expressed “grave concern.” What he didn’t do was mention the target of those attacks: Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah—the mass murderer whose death was celebrated across the Middle East, including in Lebanon, by the victims of his brutality.

This “cycle of violence must stop now, and all sides must step back from the brink,” he said. “The people of Lebanon, the people of Israel, as well as the wider region, cannot afford an all-out war.”

The cycle of violence. That’s the classic euphemism employed by Israel’s detractors to deny its right—nay duty—to defend itself. And in case Guterres hasn’t been paying attention, an “all-out war” has been raging against the Jewish state for the past year, not including the ongoing battles imposed on it since its inception.

To make an even greater mockery of his role in the farcical international body, he proceeded to “urge the parties to recommit to the full implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701 … and immediately return to a cessation of hostilities.”

A cessation of hostilities. Another catchphrase that erases the clear distinction between victim and perpetrator—between a democratic country and a terrorist organization serving as an Iranian proxy.

He failed to mention that the 2006 resolution, adopted to conclude the Second Lebanon War, was never honored by the latter; nor was its implementation safeguarded by the UNIFIL, the “peacekeeping” U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon.

He conveniently omitted, as well, the fact that Hezbollah launched an unprovoked rocket, missile and drone assault on northern Israel on the day after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 men, women and children—as well as the abduction of 251 others—in the south.

Guterres got around this by concluding his statement-of-woe over the elimination of Nasrallah with a “reiterat[ion] of his call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of all hostages held there.”

An immediate ceasefire. In other words, an Israeli capitulation to Hamas, which hasn’t agreed to anything short of a guarantee that it remains in power in the Strip—without a release of all the hostages in return. Still, Guterres seems to think he covered his bases by paying lip service to the captives.

His disgraceful reaction to Israel’s targeted operations to take out the terrorists responsible for the very belligerence that he and his cohorts profess to abhor was to be expected. After all, he can always be counted on to occupy the wrong side of history, as was illustrated last week during the 79th session of the U.N. General Assembly.

In his mendacious address at the opening of the gathering on Sept. 24, he called Gaza a “nonstop nightmare that threatens to take the entire region with it.”

Guterres wasn’t referring to the terrorists who destroyed the enclave, however. No, he went on to warn that Lebanon could be the next to fall to the fate of Israeli aggression.

That’s not how he put it, of course. He preferred innuendo.

“We should all be alarmed by the escalation,” he said. “The people of Lebanon, the people of Israel and the people of the world cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza.”

It would have been a reasonable remark had it been uttered to explain why Israel’s actions have been necessary for the benefit of humankind. Naturally, though, that’s not what Guterres meant.

In order to veil his true intentions, he gave a perfunctory nod to morality.

“Let’s be clear,” he began. “Nothing can justify the abhorrent acts of terror committed by Hamas on Oct. 7, or the taking of hostages, both of which I have repeatedly condemned.”

Then came the clincher: “And nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. The speed and scale of the killing and destruction in Gaza are unlike anything in my years as secretary-general. More than 200 of our own staff have been killed, many with their families. And yet the women and men of the United Nations continue to deliver humanitarian aid. I know you join me in paying a special tribute to UNRWA and to all humanitarians in Gaza.”

So, he still hasn’t acknowledged that UNRWA is an arm of Hamas or that many of its employees actively participated in the Oct. 7 massacre and held hostages in their homes.

That’s probably why he felt no compunction about subsequently declaring, “The international community must mobilize for an immediate ceasefire, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and the beginning of an irreversible process towards a two-state solution.”

The icing on the cake came in the form of rhetorical questions.

“For those who go on undermining that goal with more settlements, more landgrabs, more incitement, I ask, ‘What is the alternative? How could the world accept a one-state future in which a large number of Palestinians would be included without any freedom, rights or dignity?’”

Luckily for the people of the region and beyond, Israel has stopped worrying about the foul language of the likes of Guterres and begun exercising its might to defeat its enemies. While the United Nations moans at the Jewish state’s moves in Lebanon, genuine freedom-seekers everywhere are cheering.

Image: United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s 79th session on Sept. 24, 2024. Credit: Laura Jarriel/U.N. Photo.