Israel Foreign Minister Condemns UN Secretary-General
By Worthy News’ George Whitten and Stefan J. Bos
NEW YORK (Worthy News) – Israel’s foreign minister condemned United Nations Secretary-General General Antonio Guterres for suggesting that a recent massacre against Israel was linked to Palestinians being “subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”
Minister Eli Cohen also dismissed U.N. calls for “proportionality” in the country’s response to Hamas’ surprise attacks in Israel on October 7 that killed 1,400 people.”Tell me, what is a proportionate response for the killing of babies, for rape (of) women and burn them, for beheading a child?” Cohen asked. “How can you agree to a cease-fire with someone who swore to kill and destroy your own existence?”
He told the U.N. Security Council that the proportionate response to the October 7 massacre is “a total destruction to the last one of the Hamas,” calling the extremist group “the new Nazis.” He stressed: “It is not only Israel’s right to destroy Hamas. It’s our duty.”
Cohen called the attacks “a wake-up call for the entire free world” against extremism, and he urged “the civilized world to stand united behind Israel to defeat Hamas.”
And he warned that today it is Israel, and tomorrow, Hamas and the attackers “will be at everyone’s doorstep,” starting with the West.
Cohen also accused Qatar of financing Hamas and said the fate of the more than 200 hostages taken from Israel, some of whose families came to the U.N. meeting, was in the hands of its emir.
Earlier, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations condemned the “horrible views” of U.N. Secretary-General Guterres and urged him to resign.
SHOCKING REMARKS
Ambassador Gilad Erdan described Guterres’ remarks as “shocking” for linking the Hamas attacks to perceived Israeli injustices to Palestinians. “I have condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented October 7 acts of terror by Hamas in Israel,” Guterres said. “Nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring, and kidnapping of civilians – or the launching of rockets against civilian targets.”
Yet Guterres also said, “It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. “The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled, their people displaced, and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing,” said the secretary general.
“But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” he added.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki demanded an end to the Israeli attacks.
“We are here today to stop the killing, to stop … the ongoing massacres being deliberately and systematically and savagely perpetrated by Israel, the occupying power, against the Palestinian civilian population,” he stressed. “Over 2 million Palestinians are on a survival mission every day, every night.”
Under international law, he said, “it is our collective human duty to stop them.” Al-Maliki warned that more attacks and killings and weapons and alliances won’t make Israel safer: “Only peace will.”
His words came amid Western concerns that more countries will get involved in the war, including Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Lebanon, and Syria backed by Russia. China is also in the region with warships to counter the U.S. presence there.
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