Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to speak on the third day of the UN General Assembly in New York, Thursday, Sept. 26, but according to Reshet Bet Radio, he is yet to request a meeting with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, over Israel’s dissatisfaction with the moves the Secretary has led and his statements against it since the beginning of the war.
In the past, Netanyahu met with Guterres each time he addressed the General Assembly.
The spokesman for the UN Secretary-General Stephane Dujarric told Kan11 News that “if the Prime Minister requests a meeting, the UN Secretary-General will meet with the Prime Minister, just as the Secretary-General will meet with any head of delegation who requests a meeting.”
It means that Guterres’ office is not expecting to contact the Israeli delegation to request a meeting with the visiting Netanyahu.
Last June, Guterres accused Israel – without mentioning it by name – of spreading disinformation about him since October 7. He said, “I have heard the same source say several times already that I have never attacked Hamas, that I have never condemned it, and that I support it. But I have condemned Hamas 102 times, 51 of them in official speeches, and the rest on social media.”
The most injurious statement from Guterres came on October 24, 2023, a little over two weeks after the October 7 atrocities. He said the attacks by Hamas “did not happen in a vacuum,” and essentially blamed Israel for its tragedy, even though he added that such atrocities could not justify the “appalling attacks” by Hamas. He then noted cleverly that those attacks did not justify “collective punishment of the Palestinian people” by Israel.
His words were interpreted as justification for the actions of Hamas and provoked sharp criticism from Israel and a call for his resignation. Foreign Minister Eli Cohen canceled a meeting with Guterres in protest. Guterres for his part refused to apologize and claimed that his words were misinterpreted and that he did not justify the Hamas attack.
But he did equate the Hamas rapes and murders with Israel’s activities in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza which was as close as he could get to justifying Hamas’s horrifying crimes without saying outright that Israel deserved it.
There really is no reason for Netanyahu to meet with this rabid antisemite. He’ll remain part of the décor through 2029, and there’s nothing we can do about it. So, ignoring him is as good a policy as we can have.
