Guterres Makes Things Worse

After Iran’s missile attack on Israel, UN Secretary-General Guterres wrote on social media:

I condemn the broadening of the Middle East conflict with escalation after escalation. This must stop. We absolutely need a ceasefire.

This provoked a furious reaction from Israel, causing Foreign Minister Israel Katz to finally respond:

Today, I have declared UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres persona non grata in Israel and banned him from entering the country. Anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran's heinous attack on Israel, as almost every country in the world has done, does not deserve to step foot on Israeli soil.

Guterres reacted right away while speaking at the United Nations, saying:

As should have been obvious yesterday in the context of the condemnation I expressed, I again strongly condemn yesterday's massive missile attack by Iran on Israel.

Here’s the thing Guterres has wrong. Whatever he may have meant, a condemnation of Iran wasn’t obvious from his first remarks at all.

Instead, his post was diplomatic gobbledygook that anyone could understand to mean whatever they like. Iran, Lebanon, and the Palestinians could interpret it as criticism only of Israel, by claiming that Israel is solely responsible for each escalation. A cursory review of the hundreds of comments on Guterres's post shows precisely that going on!

This is reminiscent of Guterres’s remarks in the immediate aftermath of October 7^th, when he said he condemned Hamas atrocities while at the same time expressing sympathy for their cause. Whatever he may have meant, his words were a jumble of politically neutral buzzwords that enabled everyone, including Hamas and its supporters, to claim they had the Secretary General’s support.

These are not innocent misunderstandings. A grave threat to peace and security, which the Secretary-General is supposed to help preserve, is that countries and armed groups committing atrocities are able to rationalize that their crimes are somehow justified or acceptable under International law. They’ll say that yes, randomly murdering innocent citizens is bad, but if only you understood the depths of our grievance or the importance of our cause you’d see that we’re right.

It's the job of people who represent human rights and the international legal system to state an emphatic no. To say clearly that firing ballistic missiles at Tel Aviv, whether in order to avenge a killing in Lebanon or to send some sort of political message, is completely forbidden under humanitarian law.

When the Secretary-General is ambiguous, making only vague reference to ‘escalations’, he is giving Iran and its supporters an opening to say he doesn’t mean us. Since in our view Israel is the great evil responsible for all the Middle East’s problems, bombs away. Law applies to other wars, but it shouldn’t be a bother to us. Hamas and Hezbollah draw the same conclusion.

When the United Nations as a whole is not evenhanded, condemning to the hilt any possible humanitarian violation by Israel but reacting to violations against Israel with a token reprimand or half-hearted shrug, the effect is the same. Those who are holding Israeli citizens captive or firing rockets at Israel’s cities get the message that it’s not really wrong. They figure that if the Human Rights Council really meant it, they’d be far more harsh and vocal. The minor reprimands for hostage taking and indiscriminate rocket fire are just pro-forma necessary in order to justify the continued condemnations of Israel, which is what it’s really all about.

The tragedy is that right now we need strong, respected leadership for human rights and humanitarian law. With his vague statements and oblique references, Guterres is not only failing to provide that, he’s making the situation worse.

Photo by: Quirinale.it, Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=112083304