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How António Guterres Betrayed the Jews
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks at the UN headquarters in New York City, US, before a meeting about the conflict in Gaza, Nov. 6, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
JNS.org – Back in February, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a speech at the Ohel Jakob synagogue in Munich in which he struck most of the right notes.
Guterres acknowledged what Israel’s most diehard adversaries never will—that the Jewish people are indigenous to the historic Land of Israel. “I was in Masada,” he said. “And I lived the feeling of the Jewish people about the expulsion of the Roman Empire in the first century and how the Jewish community has spread in the Roman Empire but, since the beginning, became in the different areas of the empire, victims of different forms of segregation, discrimination and persecution.”
Antisemitism, Guterres also observed, “was not born with the Nazis and did not die with the Nazis.” Referring to his native Portugal, which expelled its Jewish population at the beginning of the 16th century, the U.N. chief bemoaned this “criminal” and “stupid” act for causing suffering to Jews and impoverishing the country culturally and economically. And, he continued, “antisemitism is unfortunately spreading today. It has had, I would say, a clear acceleration since the horrific attacks of Hamas on the seventh of October, but it was already a central concern for us in the last decades. We have seen how it was multiplying both online and offline with all kinds of manifestations, desecration of cemeteries, personal attacks on people, vicious actions online, and worst, an attempt to rewrite history.”
All of this is in keeping with Guterres’s previous comments on the issue, including his determination in 2017 that the “denial of Israel’s right to exist is antisemitism,” which is an enormously significant statement for the head of the world’s most thoroughly and consistently anti-Israel body. Additionally, during the coronavirus pandemic, Guterres spoke out more than once against the antisemitic memes that spread like wildfire in the “covidiocy” camp of anti-vaxxers and allied conspiracy theorists.
Yet there is one aspect of this issue on which he has remained silent. And that is the antisemitism that stains the organization he leads.
When Guterres rightly identified calls for Israel’s elimination as antisemitism—a contention that has been proven ad nauseam in the months since the Oct. 7 pogrom—it would have been natural for him, intellectually speaking, to examine how the United Nations has contributed to legitimizing this demand. In 1975, at the behest of the Soviet Union and its Arab allies, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution decrying Zionism as a form of racism, already established as a staple of Soviet propaganda. In the same year, the United Nations created a Division for Palestinian Rights dedicated to promoting and amplifying the themes in that resolution. Alongside this network is a so-called humanitarian agency, UNRWA, which is solely dedicated to Palestinian refugees and their descendants. No other dispossessed or persecuted people, inside or outside the Middle East, has been handed the same privilege. UNRWA has certainly risen to the occasion, spreading antisemitic ideology in the schools it runs and even employing Palestinians who participated in the Oct. 7 atrocities.
Then you have the U.N. Human Rights Council, which dedicates an entire agenda item to vilifying Israel, and which periodically pushes out ugly, unsubstantiated attacks on Israel through the guise of “independent experts.” One such report was released just last week by a team of three commissioners, one of whom, Miloon Kothari, famously accused the “Jewish Lobby” of controlling social media (if only, eh?)
In an environment like this one, it’s hardly surprising that Israel now finds itself on a blacklist with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Russia, Burma/Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Yemen as states whose militaries systemically abuse children. Yet what is noteworthy here is that this list is provided by Guterres’ own office, which produces the annual “Children in Armed Conflict” report.
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad also made the list, rubbing salt into the wound by equating Israel’s military with a bunch of murderers, rapists and deviants who derive pleasure from mutilating the dead and similarly bestial acts. Again, there is nothing remarkable about the world body drawing such a grotesque comparison. What is noteworthy is that it carries the endorsement of Guterres, who goes out of his way to portray himself as an ally of Jews when he speaks to Jewish audiences, but then doggedly sticks to the anti-Zionist script once he returns to Turtle Bay.
Because if Guterres really did believe in the points he made during his Munich speech, then he would not have assented to Israel’s inclusion on the blacklist. If he really appreciated the centrality of Israel as an anchor of security for Jews the world over, if he really grasped the mass trauma provoked by Oct. 7 for Israelis and Jews around the world alike, if he really knew in every fiber of his being that the Jewish people have only this one country that is currently facing a campaign of deadly violence orchestrated by Iran and its regional proxies, then Israel would not be sharing space with militaries whose sole raison d’être is the murder, torture and wholesale destruction of innocent civilians.
That is why Jews have every right to feel betrayed by Guterres. At least his predecessors, who included the late Austrian Nazi Kurt Waldheim, never raised our expectations and never cheated us into thinking that the United Nations was changing direction on Israel. Guterres dangled precisely that hope and then snatched it away.
Now he has lent his imprimatur to one of the worst antisemitic blood libels to emerge from the halls of the United Nations—and there have been many. The twisted logic that places Israel on such a list could easily be applied to the United States, the United Kingdom and France—all permanent U.N. Security Council members whose militaries have faced war-crime charges in countries like Algeria, Iraq and Afghanistan. But only Israel faces this treatment because targeting the Jewish state has become routinized and normalized in the U.N. setting.
That will only change when a successor to Guterres honestly appraises the world body’s own record of antisemitism and pledges to end it, first of all by dismantling all the elements—the committees, the various “independent” commissions, the anti-Israel agenda items set in stone—that contribute to this institutional bias. Only then can Jews gain any kind of trust in the United Nations. And that, for the foreseeable future, isn’t going to happen.
The post How António Guterres Betrayed the Jews first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sen. Rick Scott Donates Salary to US Holocaust Memorial Museum
US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, Dec. 7, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) announced on Wednesday that he will donate a portion of his Senate salary to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, underscoring what he called the urgent need to combat antisemitism at home and abroad as threats to Jewish communities escalate.
Scott, who has given part of his congressional salary since joining the Senate in 2019, said his gift was motivated by the growing dangers facing Jewish people and the importance of ensuring younger generations understand the Holocaust.
“Ann and I are proud to support the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Years ago, Ann and I brought our daughters to the Auschwitz memorial and museum in Poland because it was so important to us that they learned about the Holocaust and understood the horrors that occurred,” he said in a statement.
“It’s so important that every generation understands the atrocities of the Holocaust, and the museum does an incredible job teaching those lessons to millions of people every year. By sharing the stories of those who survived and those who were murdered, providing critical resources to educators, and reminding each of us what it means when we say ‘Never Again,’ it is a vital institution,” he added.
Scott also recounted taking his daughters years ago to Auschwitz in Poland, describing the visit as an effort to show them the catastrophic consequences of unchecked hatred against Jews.
The senator tied his donation to the approaching second anniversary of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during the onslaught.
“As we approach the second anniversary of Oct. 7, Ann and I are proud to support the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s meaningful work defending the truth of the Holocaust and their important efforts to teach its relevance for today,” Scott said.
Scott’s office did not disclose the specific amount of the donation.
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Texas State University Silent on Status of Professor Who Incited Violent Attack on Jews at Public Library
West Asheville Library in North Carolina. Photo: Screenshot/buncombecounty.org.
Texas State University is refusing to disclose whether it still currently employs a far-left professor who was filmed inciting a riotous assault on three pro-Israel individuals who peacefully spectated an anti-Israel presentation that was held in June 2024 at the West Asheville Library in North Carolina.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, two of the victims, David Moritz and Monica Buckley, are Jewish, and one is cancer patient Bob Campbell, an 80-year-old military veteran. Their assailants kicked, punched, and dragged them out of the event, titled “Strategic Lessons From the Palestinian Resistance,” after Texas State University assistant professor of philosophy Idris Atsu Robinson spotted them in the audience and invited the 60-80 anti-Israel partisans in attendance to decide their fates.
At one point during harrowing footage taken of the incident, Robinson suggested that the encounter could lead to “murder.” At no point did he deescalate the situation and even seemed to find humor in igniting the passions of a mob.
Responding to an Algemeiner inquiry on Thursday, a Texas State media relations official declined to comment on Robinson’s employment status, saying the university “does not discuss personnel matters.”
The university has been asked before to account for its handling of Robinson.
In June, the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department, a pro-Israel nonprofit that seeks to combat antisemitism, notified the school of Robinson’s conduct and rhetoric. According to StandWithUs, “university sources” confirmed that he will not be teaching during the fall semester of the 2025-2026 academic year. However, the university would not comment on the matter “due to the confidential nature of personnel matters,” making it unclear whether Robinson is still employed by Texas State and will teach there in the future.
StandWithUs says Texas State should state Robinson’s employment status, share findings amassed during an internal investigation of him, and produce any previous complaints which accused him of wrongdoing.
“It is critical that universities protect Jewish and Zionist students by refusing to provide a classroom platform to faculty members unlawfully promoting antisemitic hate and violence,” Michael Scheinman, Saidoff Legal Department assistant director of campus and community affairs, told The Algemeiner on Wednesday. “Schools that do not act and fail to implement strong safeguards risk exposing their students to the same hatred and violence suffered by the victims of this attack.”
He added, “StandWithUS Saidoff Legal continues to support the victims of this horrendous hate incident by coordinating with law enforcement, helping to identify masked perpetrators, and urging Texas State University to condemn the antisemitic conduct that contributed to this violence.”
By his own words, Robinson took immense pride in what transpired in Asheville, North Carolina last year. Commenting on the matter the next day while being interviewed on a podcast produced by the organizers of the event, he argued for “popular riots” and “divine violence,” saying explicitly that “terrorists” reserve the right to “take the life of the oppressor.”
“My arms are chewed up,” Campbell, a Navy veteran, told The Algemeiner during an interview which followed the assault. He added that medical staff at a local US Veterans Affairs facility identified “severe contusions” on his body.
“What really upset me — I was [lying] on the floor, and this big guy was on top of me,” Campbell recalled. “The librarian came to the door, looked me right in the eye, turned around and walked back and didn’t do a damn thing. Didn’t call the police.”
The activists proved equally merciless to the other victims, putting Moritz in a headlock and heaving Buckley outside and ordering her not to free herself from their grip.
Expressions of anti-Zionism are escalating to violence more frequently, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
Earlier this month, Eden Deckerhoff — a female student at Florida State University (FSU) — allegedly assaulted a Jewish male classmate at the Leach Student Recreation Center after noticing his wearing apparel issued by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“F—k Israel, Free Palestine. Put it [the video] on Barstool FSU. I really don’t give a f—k,” the woman said before shoving the man, according to video taken by the victim. “You’re an ignorant son of a b—h.” Deckerhoff has since been charged with misdemeanor battery.
According to the Tallahassee Democrat, Deckerhoff has denied assaulting the student when questioned by investigators, telling them, “No I did not shove him at all; I never put my hands on him.” However, law enforcement charged her with misdemeanor battery and described the incident in court documents as seen in viral footage of the incident, acknowledging that Deckerhoff “appears to touch [the man’s] left shoulder.” Despite her denial, the Democrat noted, she has offered to apologize.
In June, a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by a major Jewish organization. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
Less than two weeks later, a man firebombed a crowd of people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the Israeli hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. A victim of the attack, Karen Diamond, 82, later died, having sustained severe, fatal injuries.
Another antisemitic incident motivated by anti-Zionism occurred in San Francisco, where an assailant identified by law enforcement as Juan Diaz-Rivas and others allegedly beat up a Jewish victim in the middle of the night. Diaz-Rivas and his friends approached the victim while shouting “F—k the Jews, Free Palestine,” according to local prosecutors.
“[O]ne of them punched the victim, who fell to the ground, hit his head and lost consciousness,” the San Francisco district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Allegedly, Mr. Diaz-Rivas and others in the group continued to punch and kick the victim while he was down. A worker at a nearby business heard the altercation and antisemitic language and attempted to intervene. While trying to help the victim, he was kicked and punched.”
According to the latest data released by the FBI, antisemitic hate crimes in the US have been tallying to break all previous statistical records. In 2024, even as hate crimes decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups have noted that this surge, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.
A striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims were targeted the next highest amount as the victims of 256 offenses, or about 9 percent of the total.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Europeans Launch UN Sanctions Process Against Iran, Drawing Tehran’s Ire
Satellite image shows buildings at Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, before Israel launched an attack on Iran targeting nuclear facilities, in Isfahan, Iran, May 17, 2025. Photo: Planet Labs PBC via REUTERS
Britain, France, and Germany on Thursday launched a 30-day process to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear program, a step likely to stoke tensions two months after Israel and the United States bombed Iran.
A senior Iranian official quickly accused the three European powers of harming diplomacy and vowed that Tehran would not bow to pressure over the move by the E3 to launch the so-called “snapback mechanism.”
The three powers feared they would otherwise lose the prerogative in mid-October to restore sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under a 2015 nuclear accord with world powers.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the decision did not signal the end of diplomacy. His German counterpart Johann Wadephul urged Iran to now fully cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog agency and commit to direct talks with the United States over the next month.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters the decision was “illegal and regrettable” but left the door open for engagement.
“The move is an action against diplomacy, not a chance for it. Diplomacy with Europe will continue,” the official said, adding: “Iran will not concede under pressure.”
The UN Security Council is due to meet behind closed doors on Friday at the request of the E3 to discuss the snapback move against the Islamic Republic, diplomats said.
Iran and the E3 have held several rounds of talks since Israel and the US bombed its nuclear installations in mid-June, aiming to agree to defer the snapback mechanism. But the E3 deemed that talks in Geneva on Tuesday did not yield sufficient signals of readiness for a new deal from Iran.
The E3 acted on Thursday over accusations that Iran has violated the 2015 deal that aimed to prevent it developing a nuclear weapons capability in return for a lifting of international sanctions. The E3, along with Russia, China, and the United States, were party to that accord.
US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of that accord in 2018 during his first term, calling the deal one-sided in Iran‘s favor, and it unraveled in ensuing years as Iran abandoned limits set on its enrichment of uranium.
Trump’s second administration held fruitless indirect negotiations earlier this year with Tehran.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the E3 move and said Washington remained available for direct engagement with Iran “in furtherance of a peaceful, enduring resolution to the Iran nuclear issue.”
An Iranian source said Tehran would do so only “if Washington guarantees there will be no [military] strikes during the talks.”
The E3 said they hoped Iran would engage by the end of September to allay concerns about its nuclear agenda sufficiently for them to defer concrete action.
“The E3 are committed to using every diplomatic tool available to ensure Iran never develops a nuclear weapon,” including the snapback mechanism, they said in a letter sent to the UN Security Council and seen by Reuters.
“The E3’s commitment to a diplomatic solution nonetheless remains steadfast.”
Iran has previously warned of a “harsh response” if sanctions are reinstated, and the Iranian official said it was reviewing its options, including withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The E3 had offered to extend the snapback for as much as six months to enable serious negotiations if Iran restored access for UN nuclear inspectors – who would also seek to account for Iran‘s large stock of enriched uranium whose status has been unknown since the June war – and engages in talks with the U.S.
Calling the E3 decision inevitable, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said it was an “important step in the diplomatic campaign to counter the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions.”
GROWING FRUSTRATION IN IRAN
The UN process takes 30 days before sanctions that would hit Iran‘s financial, banking, hydrocarbons, and defense sectors are restored.
Russia and China, strategic partners of Iran, finalized a draft Security Council resolution on Thursday that would extend the 2015 nuclear deal for six months and urge all parties to immediately resume negotiations.
But they have not yet asked for a vote.
“The world is at crossroads,” Russia’s deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told reporters. “One option is peace, diplomacy, goodwill … Another option is a kind of diplomacy at the barrel of the gun.”
The specter of renewed sanctions is stirring frustration in Iran, where economic anxiety is rising and political divisions are deepening, three insiders close to the government said.
Iranian leaders are split over how to respond — with anti-Western hardliners urging defiance and confrontation, while moderates advocate diplomacy.
Iran has been enriching uranium to up to 60 percent fissile purity, a short step from the roughly 90 percent of bomb-grade, and had enough material enriched to that level, if refined further, for six nuclear weapons, before the airstrikes by Israel started on June 13, according to the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog.
Actually manufacturing a weapon would take more time, however, and the IAEA has said that while it cannot guarantee Tehran‘s nuclear program is entirely peaceful, it has no credible indication of a coordinated weapons project.
The West says the advancement of Iran‘s nuclear program goes beyond civilian needs, while Tehran says it wants nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes.