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Guterres Embraces the Authoritarians
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres meets with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, on the sidelines of the general debate of the General Assembly’s 79th session on Sept. 24, 2024. Photo: Eskinder Debebe/U.N. Photo.
JNS.org – It’s often said about antisemitism that Jews are the canary in the coal mine: What starts with them won’t end with them, and sooner or later, the rest of society will suffer the consequences of this thoroughly anti-democratic ideology. I’m not going to delve into that proposition here, save to say that while I don’t entirely agree with it, there are times when its core observation can prove useful.
A case in point concerns the secretary-general of the United Nations, António Guterres. Back in June, I gave voice to the disappointment I know is shared by many other Jews over the evolution of his stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After initially appearing quite promising and making all the right noises on why antisemitism is a global threat that needs to be dealt with, Guterres transformed for the worse after the Hamas pogrom in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, joining the chorus chiding the Jewish state on the international stage—from Ireland to South Africa, from Spain to Chile, and all points in between. Particularly disgraceful was his decision to place Israel on a blacklist of countries whose militaries abuse children, alongside such paragons of virtue as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Russia, Burma/Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Yemen. Other democracies, including the United States, France and the United Kingdom, could easily end up on a list like this given the actions of their militaries in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they don’t because the United Nations understands that the political costs of such an action are minimal only when it comes to Israel.
Now Guterres is burrowing deeper into the authoritarian, conspiracy-addled universe from which antisemitism springs. Last week, the U.N. chief arrived in the Russian city of Kazan for a three-day summit of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) bloc of states, which bills themselves as an alternative to the economic institutions, like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, that have dominated the post-World War II global order.
The summit was hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who delightedly used the occasion to demonstrate that his illegal and brutal invasion of Ukraine hasn’t exactly robbed him of allies. More than 20 world leaders joined him in Kazan, among them Chinese President Xi Jinping, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Other states eager to enter the BRICS fold, including Ethiopia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, also sent senior representatives to sit at Putin’s feet.
By attending the summit in Russia, Guterres was effectively spitting in the faces of both Ukraine and Israel. In doing so, he proved that when you flirt with antisemitism and legitimize its tropes, you open yourself up to embracing all of its associated baggage—fake news, outlandish theories and the recasting of terrorism as a form of “resistance.”
BRICS isn’t an exact copy of the Warsaw Pact—the treaty organization that bound the Soviet Union to its Communist satellite states during the Cold War—but it is certainly making moves in that direction. Among its five founders, only Brazil and India have an interest in keeping relations cordial with Western democracies, but they are no match for Chinese or Russian imperatives in this regard. Meanwhile, South Africa and those states that have knocked on the BRICS door more recently—like Turkey, despite its status as a NATO ally—regard the bloc as much more than an economic association. Critically, BRICS will provide rogue states like Iran and even North Korea with a veneer of legitimacy denied to them in Western circles.
Indeed, none of the subjects that the Russian news agency Tass, quoting a Kremlin statement, reported as being on the agenda at a private meeting between Putin and Guterres concerned trade or economic development. Their “discussion will be given to pressing issues on the international agenda, including the Middle East crisis and the situation around Ukraine,” the Kremlin said. What Guterres will hear from Putin is the standard Russian line, defaming Ukraine’s democratic government as a collection of “neo-Nazis” and richly complaining, nearly three years into the invasion of Ukraine, that it is Israel’s multi-front defensive war against an axis of Iranian proxies that is causing instability! Meanwhile, Iran continues to supply Russia with missiles and drones, while North Korea has—according to South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence reports—sent thousands of its troops to fight alongside the Russians.
By feting a group of states who represent, in the words of Kyiv Post commentator Orhan Dragas, “a worrying mix of authoritarianism, anti-democratic governance, and war crimes,” Guterres is compromising the basic values of the world body’s founding charter. His presence amounts to an approval of Russia’s actions in Ukraine and the deepening alliance between Moscow and Tehran. The only way to avoid that impression would be for Guterres to state clearly that Russia must withdraw entirely from Ukraine and that Israel, as a sovereign U.N. member state, has an unquestioned right to defend itself against an association of states and client paramilitaries seeking its destruction. He won’t, of course, say anything that comes even close to that.
The elephant in the room here is the US-led alliance of democratic states around the world. Over the last 80 years, there has been any number of reasons for them to ditch the United Nations in favor of a new world organization that doesn’t allow its members to repress their own populations or sew regional havoc in the name of “national sovereignty.” Yet they have not done so, mainly because they fear an outcome in which they are unable to influence or check the behavior of authoritarian states. And with the future of US foreign policy up for grabs ahead of the US presidential election on Nov. 5, Putin correctly calculates that now is the perfect time for him to strut the world stage, presenting a vision of international relations that will strengthen the positions of Russia and its allies while weakening ours.
The practical effects of this weakness are already painfully visible. To take a few examples: Qatar—an Iranian ally that practices a form of apartheid by disenfranchising nearly 90% of its population—has been elected to the U.N. Human Rights Council; UNRWA—the U.N. agency solely dedicated to the descendants of Palestinian refugees—continues to function despite copious evidence of the overlap between members of its staff and Hamas; and the U.N.’s top official is breaking bread with a Russian leader eager to revive the threat posed by his country during the Cold War.
I could go on, but it will suffice to say that the head-in-the-sand approach of Western leaders to our fracturing international institutions is in large part responsible for the situation in which we find ourselves. The only real pushback that Guterres has received so far has come from Israel, which has declared him persona non grata. As welcome as that decision is, it is an isolated one that will have little impact until other countries pluck up the courage to follow suit.
The post Guterres Embraces the Authoritarians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Who Is the Biggest Bastard?’ Belgian Politician Equates Israel With Hamas After Refusing Jewish New Year Greeting
Matthias Diependaele, Minister‑President of Flanders, has faced backlash after declining to send a Rosh Hashanah message to Belgium’s Jewish community. Photo: Screenshot
A senior Belgian politician who recently refused to send a Jewish New Year message has once again sparked outrage for equating Israel with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Matthias Diependaele, Minister‑President of Flanders — the Dutch-speaking region in northern Belgium — was speaking before the Flemish Parliament on Tuesday when he argued the world’s lone Jewish state and only democracy in the Middle East was no better morally than an international designated terrorist group.
“How do you explain who is the biggest bastard?” he asked. “On the one hand, you have an innovative, modern country that should be based on Western standards, but uses disproportionate force and commits human rights violations without any compassion. On the other hand, you see a terrorist organization that doesn’t hesitate to hide behind a human shield. Who is the bigger bastard? The one who shoots at children? Or the one who uses them as a human shield? I don’t know. I choose the innocent victims, and I want to think about how best to help them.”
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the ongoing war with their invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, when they murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages while perpetrating widespread sexual violence. In response, Israel has waged a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths during its war effort to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication. However, Hamas, which rules Gaza, has in many cases prevented people from leaving, according to the Israeli miitary.
Another challenge for Israel is Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
Diependaele belongs to the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), the same center-right party led by Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever. His parliamentary remarks prompted immediate backlash.
“The Flemish Alliance has completely surrendered to leftist pressure and no longer has a moral compass. He compares a free society and democratic state, existentially threatened, to a gang of murderous Muslim terrorists,” said Sam van Rooy, a lawmaker from the right-wing Vlaams Belang party, according to multiple reports. “This is why I continue responding to the anti-Israeli debate, constantly fed by leftist parties and traditional parties — it causes masks to fall. Israel is a litmus test. Now we know that, unfortunately, Flanders is controlled by a prime minister who cannot distinguish between good and evil.”
Diependaele has even received criticism from other members of Belgium’s five-party federal government coalition.
Sammy Mahdi, head of the Christian Democratic and Flemish party (CD&V), described the remarks in an Instagram post as “shameful” and indicative of “a lack of common sense.”
CD&V and Vooruit, another political party in the coalition, said on Wednesday that Diependaele was not speaking on behalf of the government, according to Belgian media.
Diependaele’s comments came after he declined a request last week by the Belgian Jewish newspaper The Centrale to provide a Rosh Hashanah message. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, will take place in late September this year.
“After internal deliberation, we regret to inform you that, given the current situation and sensitivities concerning the tensions in the Middle East, we cannot follow up on your request,” the statement from Diependaele’s office read.
“Anything that bears even the slightest connection to this conflict is being closely monitored and examined under a magnifying glass. For that reason, we do not deem it opportune to go into this any further,” it continued.
According to the Jewish newspaper, requesting a Rosh Hashanah greeting from Belgium’s leaders for the country’s Jewish citizens has been a long-standing tradition.
“This year, even that became radioactive,” The Centrale wrote.
Shortly after the newspaper published Diependaele’s response, which drew widespread outrage from Belgium’s Jewish community, the politician rejected claims of antisemitism and attempted to defend his earlier statement.
“My refusal is purely based on the principle that, for more than 15 years in my role as a representative of the people, I have not supported religious activities,” Diependaele wrote in a new letter sent to The Centrale.
“I have also never accepted invitations for the Eid. I have also never taken part in a Te Deum for Catholics,” the Flemsih leader continued. “By this I am in no way passing judgment on any religion or on the people who practice it. It is, however, my conviction that no religion — including my own — has any role to play in the exercise of my mandate.”
However, the paper rejected Diependaele’s new letter, arguing that his shift from “too sensitive right now” to a “timeless principle” was an attempt to mask his initial fear of public backlash.
The World Jewish Congress denounced Diependaele’s actions as a clear act of antisemitism.
“Holding Jews in the Diaspora collectively accountable for the actions of Israel – is antisemitic. To be a political leader, and to refuse to acknowledge the traditions and culture of your country’s Jewish community – because of Israel – is antisemitic,” the organization said in a statement. “What transpired is quite clear: A political leader declined to acknowledge their Jewish citizens because of Israel and the perceived public backlash about engaging with Jews.”
While members of the Belgian government have been pushing for a tougher stance against Israel amid the Gaza war, the country has been less critical of the Israeli military campaign in recent months than other European countries.
In late April, for example, De Wever rejected a journalist’s claim that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza and argued it is premature to recognize a “Palestinian state.”
Weeks earlier, Belgium announced it would not enforce the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza, should he visit Brussels.
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Palestinian Activist Ahed Tamimi Says ‘We Are Fighting the Jews, Not Zionism’
Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi attends the annual festival of Greek Communist Youth in Athens, Greece, Sept. 22, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Costas Baltas
Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi said on a podcast earlier this month that she is fighting Jews, not Zionism, and that she wishes for World War III.
“I was raised [to believe] that Judaism means occupation, and today, tomorrow, and a million years from now, I will continue to say that Judaism [should] be presented to the children of Palestine – children of my age and younger – as occupation, and that we are fighting the Jews, not Zionism,” Tamimi, now 24, said on “The Enlightenment Podcast” on YouTube on Aug. 8.
Tamimi’s comments were flagged by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which reported on and translated her remarks.
Palestinian Activist Ahed Tamimi: We Are Fighting the Jews, Not Just Zionism; Westerners Patronize Us with Their Aid, They should Shut Up When We Talk; They Will Give Us Aid, Whether They Like It Or Not, and We Will Not Thank Them; I Wish for a Nuclear WWIII, So the Whole World… pic.twitter.com/NNn5Jf7TD6
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) August 15, 2025
“The whole world needs to shut up, when a Palestinian is talking,” she said. “We are superior to the entire world, because we are the only ones in the world fighting injustice, at the expense of our lives, and the expense of our humanity.”
Tamimi continued, “Every night when I go to sleep, I put my head on the pillow, and I pray to God to protect the humanity left inside me, because I don’t want to become a killer. In this West of yours, if a mother screams at her child, he grows up to become a serial killer.”
“I have reached a point where I wish for a World War III. Whoever dies, dies, and whoever lives, lives. The important thing is that we will be over with this. I have reached this point,” she said. “Let the whole world be destroyed, I don’t care. Let them drop nuclear bombs, and destroy the whole world, so it won’t be just the Palestinians.”
These recent comments are the most recent in a long string of radical remarks by Tamimi. In November 2023, she wrote, in an Instagram post, “Come on settlers, we are waiting for you in all the West Bank cities from Hebron to Jenin – we will slaughter you and you will say that what Hitler did to you was a joke.”
Speaking about Israelis who live in the West Bank, she said, “We will drink your blood and eat your skull. Come on, we are waiting for you.”
Tamimi became famous internationally in 2017 when a video of her, then just 16 years old, slapping, kicking, and yelling at Israeli soldiers went viral as a symbol of both Palestinian resistance to Israel, and the asymmetric nature of the conflict. The soldiers did not retaliate but did later arrest her.
Tamimi was convicted on four counts of assaulting an IDF officer and soldier, incitement, and interference with IDF forces in March 2018, and was sentenced to eight months in prison and eight months of probation.
She was released a few months later, in July 2018. Since then, Tamimi has been hailed as a Palestinian human rights activist, received a book deal from Penguin Random House, and consistently received sympathetic coverage from Western news outlets.
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Trump Administration Reaffirms Opposition to Turkey Rejoining F-35 Program
A Lockheed Martin F-35 aircraft is seen at the ILA Air Show in Berlin, Germany, April 25, 2018. REUTERS/Axel Schmidt
The Trump administration has reaffirmed its opposition to Turkey’s rejoining the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, citing Ankara’s possession of Russian S-400 missile defense systems.
In a letter sent on Wednesday to US Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH), a senior State Department official reiterated that Washington remains committed to enforcing the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which penalizes countries with financial ties to Russia’s defense sector.
“The Trump administration is fully committed to protecting US defense and intelligence assets and complying with US law, including CAATSA,” the letter read
The message, signed by Paul Guaglianone of the Bureau of Legislative Affairs, stated that Washington’s position “has not changed” and that Turkey’s continued possession of the Russian-supplied S-400 remains incompatible with US law and defense requirements. The official stressed that the Trump administration was fully committed to protecting American defense and intelligence assets while maintaining its obligations under the National Defense Authorization Act.
Despite the strained relationship, the letter emphasized that Turkey remains a longstanding NATO ally. US officials framed the relationship as critical to the security interests of both countries and signaled a willingness to maintain dialogue with Ankara.
In 2017, despite several US warnings, Ankara purchased the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system, leading to Turkey’s expulsion from the multibillion-dollar fighter jet program in 2019.
“The United States seeks to cooperate with Turkey on common priorities and to engage in dialogue to resolve disagreements,” Guaglianone wrote, while maintaining that Washington has “expressed our disapproval of Ankara’s acquisition of the S-400 and clearly conveyed steps that would need to be taken” in the sanctions review process.
The letter came after a bipartisan coalition of more than 40 US lawmakers pressed Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this month to prevent Turkey from rejoining the F-35 program, citing ongoing national security concerns and violations of US law. Members of Congress warned that lifting existing sanctions or readmitting Turkey to the US F-35 fifth-generation fighter program would “jeopardize the integrity of F-35 systems” and risk exposing sensitive US military technology to Russia.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed during a NATO summit in June that Ankara and Washington had begun discussing Turkey’s readmission into the program.
Under Section 1245 of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, the Pentagon is prohibited from transferring F-35 jets or related technology to Turkey unless Ankara no longer possesses the Russian-made S-400 system and provides assurances it will not acquire such equipment in the future. Because Turkey continues to retain the S-400, US officials are legally barred from approving its participation in the F-35 program.