Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, and Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, have called for the resignation of António Guterres, secretary general of the organization, after he proclaimed this Tuesday that Hamas attacks are not coming ” out of nowhere,” but after the Palestinians have been “subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.” Guterres opened the Security Council session dedicated to the situation in the Middle East on Tuesday night with a speech in which he condemned the Hamas attacks, but also alluded to the roots of the conflict.
The highest representative of the UN added in his speech: “[los palestinos] They have seen their land constantly devoured by settlements and ravaged by violence; its economy, suffocated; its population, displaced, and its homes, demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been fading.”
Following Guterres’ words, the Israeli ambassador spread a message from the social network X, formerly known as Twitter, where he demanded: “I ask that you resign immediately. It makes no justification or sense to talk to those who show understanding for the most terrible acts committed against the citizens of Israel, and even less so by a declared terrorist organization (…). “It is truly sad that the head of an organization that emerged after the Holocaust expresses such horrible opinions.”
The Israeli authorities have also announced this Wednesday that they will deny the delivery of visas to UN representatives in retaliation for Guterres’ words. Israel’s permanent representative to the body noted: “Due to his words [en referencia a Guterres]”We will not give visas to UN representatives.” Erdan has confirmed that the visa denial has already been implemented with the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths. “The time has come to teach them a lesson,” stressed the Israeli diplomat.
Israel, born as a State precisely from a decision of the United Nations – the partition of Palestine under the British mandate in 1947 – rarely abides by the resolutions that affect it issued from the Security Council, where the United States veto usually protects it against the consequences of almost unanimous international condemnations. Israel’s withering reaction, demanding the resignation of the Portuguese Secretary General and limiting the granting of visas to UN officials, has set the Israeli political class on fire like wildfire, accustomed to pointing to the United Nations when it comes to seeking an external culprit.
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The Israeli representative to the UN, Gilad Erdan, one of the most extreme leaders of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, has often confronted UN decisions, and in particular those of its secretary general, with undiplomatic ways. . In addition to Erdan, the Israeli Foreign Minister refused to meet with him and with families of hostages captured by Hamas. From Jerusalem, former Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who from the opposition has joined the Government of national unity that emerged during the war, described his words as an “apology for terrorism.”
In his speech, Guterres recalled the presence of the elephant of the “suffocating occupation, for 56 years,” in the room of the centenary conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. “Hours later, in the face of the growing cascade of invective coming from Israel, Guterres specified through the social network of the Palestinian people (with the absolute blockade and bombing of the Gaza Strip).”
Previously, last Tuesday, Guterres published in X: “After meeting with the families whose loved ones have been taken hostage, I reaffirm my call for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages held in Gaza (…). “Nothing can justify the killing, harming and kidnapping of civilians by Hamas,” Guterres emphasized. The words that sparked Israel’s rejection were spoken at the beginning of the session. As indicated in X, Ambassador Erdan considered that the Secretary General’s statements showed “understanding for the campaign of mass murder of Israeli children, women and the elderly.”
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