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‘I don’t think he’s against us’: Israeli protesters dialogue with UN chief during encounters outside his home
(New York Jewish Week) — One Friday morning last month, as United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres took the short walk from his townhouse to his car in freezing weather, he was confronted by a group of Israeli protesters who peppered him with questions about the war in Gaza and his efforts to free the hostages held by Hamas.
Guterres — flanked by security — stopped for a few seconds to chat, his breath visible in the chill. He complained about his portrayal in the Israeli press. A protester handed him a holiday card advocating for the hostages.
Shany Granot-Lubaton, one of the protest leaders, asked him about his reaction to a 47-minute film of Hamas’ atrocities, produced by the Israeli government.
“How was watching the horror movie?” she asked.
“It is human nature at its worst,” Guterres said.
The protesters thanked him, and he moved on.
Friday morning demonstrations outside Guterres’ Sutton Place home has become something of a ritual for several dozen Israeli-Americans advocating for the 136 hostages still held in Gaza. Shortly before 9 a.m., they gather on the sidewalk outside Guterres’ stately brick home, its front door framed by two white Greek pillars. Their hope is to catch him while he is exiting with a handful of security guards, and to talk with him before he gets into a black Mercedes sedan parked at the curb.
Israel has a famously adversarial relationship to the U.N., and at first, that was the activists’ posture as well. But as they approach 100 days since Oct. 7, and prepare for a large rally outside the U.N. on Friday, a change is afoot: Guterres and the protesters have started a dialogue.
“At the beginning we were very, very angry and shocked by how they reacted, and we felt like the U.N. was totally not standing for the hostages and for Israel,” Granot-Lubaton told the New York Jewish Week.
But now, she said, “He’s listening to them, he’s meeting with them. Does he do enough? Of course not. He’s not doing enough, but it’s not as it was at the beginning. Every week, when he sees us, he stops, he speaks with us respectfully, he’s listening, so I respect him for that. He could have done it differently.”
A spokesperson for Guterres, Stéphane Dujarric, said the feeling was mutual.
“Whenever he’s in New York, they’re outside and he talks to them and he always welcomes the dialogue,” Dujarric said. “His door is always open.”
Protesters outside the home of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, January 5, 2024. (Luke Tress)
The protests began as a way to castigate the U.N. chief. On Oct. 25 last year, Guterres incensed Israelis by saying that the Hamas attack “did not happen in a vacuum,” linking the terrorist atrocities to occupation, settlements and economic woes. That statement led Gilad Erdan, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, to call for Guterres’ resignation.
The demonstrations outside Guterres’ home started that week. The activists cut their teeth on protests in New York against the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul before pivoting to hostage advocacy after Oct. 7. They borrowed a tactic from their counterparts in Israel, who have been protesting outside officials’ houses for the past several years.
At first, they were angry with the U.N. and Guterres’ response to the Hamas attack, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 240 hostages, alongside other atrocities. But the activists’ views softened after Guterres viewed the Israeli government’s graphic video of the Hamas attack, and met with hostages’ families.
“At the beginning we were very angry, there was a lot of anger, like, ‘We’re going to come in front of his house and yell at him,’” said Yaala Ballin, an Israeli jazz singer who has lived in the city for 19 years and is part of the core of the Friday morning protesters.
“We kind of changed our position,” she said. “We realized that we need his help and we need to keep him on our side and we want to have him join our purpose, bring our side out there.”
Gradually, she said, Guterres began to engage. First he began pausing before getting in the car, moments that later turned into brief, cordial exchanges. “The last time was really a conversation,” she said.
In one of the encounters with the protesters, in early December, as Guterres was walking out the door, a demonstrator pursued him while holding a hostage flier, saying, “We just wanted to remind you that our hostages are still in Gaza.”
“I’m totally committed,” Guterres responded.
Granot-Lubaton said Guterres was more approachable than some of the Israeli government’s own ministers.
“He is not the demon in this story, although there are people who are trying to make him that way, but at the same time he could do a lot more,” she said. “It’s not a black and white thing.”
The demonstrators feel like they’re having an impact. Hours after the exchange with Granot-Lubaton about the film, Guterres demanded on X, formerly Twitter, that all hostages be released “immediately and unconditionally.”
“Nothing can possibly justify the horrific terror attacks launched by Hamas on 7 October,” Guterres said. But the Israeli activists don’t quite feel that he’s on their side: He followed that statement with three posts either criticizing Israel or expressing alarm about the violence in Gaza.
Protesters outside the home of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, December 8, 2024. (Luke Tress)
Guterres has also shown the protesters that he carried dog tags reading “Bring them home” in his pocket. The dog tags are part of a campaign by the families of hostages, some of whom gave the item to Guterres during a meeting.
He carried them, Granot-Lubaton pointed out, but did not wear them.
“I think in a way it symbolizes his entire reaction to this crisis. Maybe he does care about the hostages, but for different political reasons and the way the U.N. works right now, he’s not wearing it,” Granot-Lubaton said. “He’s not public enough with his commitment.”
Dujarric, the Guterres spokesperson, said, “From the start, the secretary-general has been heartbroken and devastated about what happened and what is happening to the hostages” and continues to push for their release.
“What he’s been saying on the hostages from the get-go is they need to be released unconditionally, that nothing can justify it,” Dujarric said.
Guterres isn’t always there on Friday mornings, and whether or not he shows up, the demonstrators stay for about 30 minutes, holding fliers with the faces of the hostages and reading out the captives’ names. They hang colorful origami cranes symbolizing the hostages on a tree outside Guterres’ front door. Lampposts in the quiet, upscale neighborhood are plastered with the fliers, which are ubiquitous on the city’s streets and have become a battleground between pro- and anti-Israel activists.
Hostage families and Israeli officials, including left-wing politicians such as Yair Golan and Gilad Kariv, have spoken at the events outside Guterres’ home. Balllin usually sings the Israeli national anthem, “Hatikva,” at the end of the rallies. She said the demonstrators have also become friendly with police outside Guterres’ home.
Guterres’ powers as secretary-general are limited, but the activists believe he sets the tone for much of the international community. They say international agencies can do more to help liberate the hostages, including pressuring Qatar and Egypt, which hold sway with Hamas’ leaders, to push for their release.
Protest leader Shany Granot-Lubaton leads a crowd outside the home of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, January 5, 2024. (Luke Tress)
The demonstrators are also seeking more straightforward and specific condemnation of Hamas’ war crimes, including statements that are not accompanied by criticism of Israel. In late November, Guterres condemned “accounts of sexual violence during the abhorrent acts of terror by Hamas” for the first time. Granot-Lubaton is hoping for stronger language.
“I would appreciate him saying that rape and kidnapping people and murdering innocent people is not a legitimate way of resistance,” Granot-Lubaton said. “You don’t need high moral standards to say such a thing.”
Guterres has also voiced a grievance to the protesters about his portrayal in the Israeli media after a tense encounter with hostage families. “What I read in the Israeli press was not what I said,” Guterres said.
“We know,” one of the protesters said.
And the protesters have tried to address his concerns. Ballin said some of them contacted an Israeli reporter asking for a change to an article to better reflect what had actually happened.
“I’m not angry with him anymore. I don’t think he’s against us,” Ballin said. “I think he ran into a very, very complicated situation and he’s not doing enough. I’m not angry, I just feel like he needs to be directed and reminded of the good he can do.”
She added, “We need him, and we feel he can really help just make statements loud and clear for the world to follow.”
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As Gaza War Continues, Hamas Calls for Global Protests While Israel Marks Breakthroughs in Medical Innovation
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
As the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas calls for global protests amid stalled Gaza ceasefire talks, Israel has broken new ground despite the ongoing conflict, achieving a major medical breakthrough in synthetic human kidney development.
The contrast illustrates a stark contrast between the priorities of Hamas, an international designated terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, and Israel, the lone democracy in the Middle East that has long been a leader in tech and medical innovation.
On Wednesday, Hamas urged worldwide protests in support of Palestinians, calling on the international community “to denounce Israel’s genocidal war and starvation policy in Gaza.”
“We call for continuing and escalating the popular pressure in all cities and squares on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday … through rallies, demonstrations and sit-ins outside the embassies of the Israeli regime and its allies, particularly in the US,” the statement read.
The Palestinian terrorist group also called to expose what it described as “the terrorism of the Zio-Nazi occupation against defenseless civilians.”
Hamas’s latest move against Israel comes amid stalled indirect negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal, which collapsed last month after the group vowed it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established — rejecting a key Israeli demand to end the war in Gaza.
In its statement, Hamas demanded the opening of all border crossings to allow immediate aid into the war-torn enclave and urged a global condemnation of “the international community’s inaction on the Israeli crimes.”
Amid mounting international pressure to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel announced new measures to facilitate the delivery of aid, including temporary pauses in fighting in certain areas and the creation of protected routes for aid convoys.
Israeli officials have previously accused Hamas of diverting aid for terrorist activities and selling supplies at inflated prices to civilians, while also blaming the United Nations and other foreign organizations for enabling this diversion.
Hamas’s statement also emphasized that the “global resistance movement must continue until Israeli aggression on Gaza ends and the siege on the coastal strip is lifted.”
Meanwhile, as Israel faces escalating hostilities and the heavy toll of war, the Jewish state continues to push the boundaries of innovation and resilience, achieving new medical breakthroughs while confronting ongoing challenges.
In a major medical breakthrough, scientists at Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University have successfully grown a synthetic 3D miniature human kidney in a lab using specialized stem cells derived from kidney tissue — one of the most promising advances in regenerative medicine.
Dr. Dror Harats, chairman of Sheba’s Research Authority, described this achievement as a reflection of Israel’s leading role in global medical innovation.
“Despite growing efforts to isolate Israel from international science, breakthroughs like this prove our impact is both lasting and essential,” he said.
In a landmark study, a team from Sheba’s Safra Children’s Hospital and Tel Aviv University’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Medicine created synthetic kidney organs that matured and remained stable for 34 weeks — the longest-lasting and most refined kidney organoids developed to date.
Nearly a decade ago, the research team became the first to successfully isolate human kidney tissue stem cells — the cells responsible for the organ’s development and growth.
Previous attempts to grow kidneys in a lab using general-purpose stem cells were short-lived, typically lasting only a few weeks and often producing unwanted cell types that compromised research accuracy.
However, this Israeli research team used stem cells taken directly from kidney tissue — cells that naturally develop into kidney parts — allowing them to create a much purer and more stable model with key features found in real kidneys.
This medical breakthrough could have far-reaching implications, redefining the current understanding of kidney diseases and advancing the development of innovative treatments.
Researchers believe the model could help assess how medications impact fetal kidneys during pregnancy and move science closer to repairing or replacing damaged kidney tissue with lab-grown cells.
The discovery came days after researchers from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and international partners discovered a way to boost the immune system’s cancer-fighting ability by reprogramming how T cells, which are white blood cells critical to the immune system, produce energy.
The researchers explained in a study published in the peer-reviewed Nature Communications that disabling a protein known as Ant2 in T cells greatly enhances their effectiveness against tumors.
“By disabling Ant2, we triggered a complete shift in how T cells produce and use energy,” Prof. Michael Berger of Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine, who co-led the study with doctorate student Omri Yosef, told the Tazpit Press Service. “This reprogramming made them significantly better at recognizing and killing cancer cells.”
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Netherlands to Push EU to Suspend Israel Trade Deal but Won’t Recognize Palestinian State ‘At This Time’
Netherlands Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp addresses a press conference, in New Delhi on April 1, 2025. Photo: ANI Photo/Sanjay Sharma via Reuters Connect
The Netherlands is spearheading efforts to suspend the European Union-Israel trade agreement amid rising EU criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, while simultaneously refusing to recognize a Palestinian state, contrasting with other member states as international pressure mounts.
On Thursday, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp announced that the Netherlands will push the EU to suspend the trade component of the EU-Israel Association Agreement — a pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with the Jewish state.
This latest anti-Israel initiative follows a recent EU-commissioned report accusing Israel of committing “indiscriminate attacks … starvation … torture … [and] apartheid” against Palestinians in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group.
Following calls from a majority of EU member states for a formal investigation, this report built on Belgium’s recent decision to review Israel’s compliance with the trade agreement, a process initiated by the Netherlands and led by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
According to the report, “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations” under the 25-year-old EU-Israel Association Agreement.
While the document acknowledges the reality of violence by Hamas, it states that this issue lies outside its scope — failing to address the Palestinian terrorist group’s role in sparking the current war with its bloody rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli officials have slammed the report as factually incorrect and morally flawed, noting that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure within civilian targets and Israel’s army takes extensive precautions to try and avoid civilian casualties.
In a Dutch parliamentary debate on Gaza on Thursday, Veldkamp also announced that the government would not recognize a Palestinian state for now — a position that stands in sharp contrast to the recent moves by several other EU member states to extend recognition.
“The Netherlands is not planning to recognize a Palestinian state at this time,” the Dutch diplomat said.
“This war has ceased to be a just war and is now leading to the erosion of Israel’s own security and identity,” he continued.
This latest decision goes against the position of several EU member states, including France, which has committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood in September.
The United Kingdom has likewise indicated it will do so unless Israel acts to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and agrees to a ceasefire.
For its part, Germany said it was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term, and Italy argued that recognition must occur simultaneously with the recognition of Israel by the new entity.
Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Slovenia all recognized a Palestinian state last year.
Israel has been facing growing pressure from several EU member states seeking to undermine its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
On Thursday, European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera strongly condemned Israel’s actions in the war-torn enclave, describing the situation as a “grave violation of human dignity.”
“What we are seeing is a concrete population being targeted, killed and condemned to starve to death,” Ribera told Politico. “If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning.”
Until now, the European Commission has refrained from accusing Israel of genocide, but Ribera’s comments mark one of the strongest European condemnations since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
She also called on the EU to take decisive action by considering the suspension of its trade agreement with Israel and the implementation of sanctions, while emphasizing that such measures would require unanimous approval from all member states.
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Graduate Student Unions Promoting Antisemitism, Reform Group Says
Students listen to a speech at a protest encampment at Stanford University in Stanford, California US, on April 26, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
Higher-education-based unions controlled by United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) are rife with antisemitism and anti-Zionist discrimination, according to a new letter imploring the US Congress’s House Committee on Education and the Workforce to address the matter.
“Tracing its roots to communism in the 1930s, the UE is a radical, pro-Hamas labor union that has a long history of antisemitism,” the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW), one of the US’s leading labor reform groups, wrote on July 30 in a message obtained by The Algemeiner. “The UE openly supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which is designed to cripple and destroy Israel economically. Today, the UE furthers its antisemitic agenda by unionizing graduate students on college campuses and using its exclusive representation powers to create a hostile environment for Jewish students. The hostile environment includes demanding compulsory dues to fund the UE’s abhorrent activities.”
NRTW went on to describe a litany of alleged injustices to which UE members subject Jewish student-employees in the US’s most prestigious institutions of higher education, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to Cornell University. At MIT, the letter said, “union officers” aided a riotous group which illegally occupied a section of campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” participating in the demonstration and even denying access to campus buildings. UE members at Stanford University, meanwhile, allegedly denied religious accommodations to Jewish students who requested exemption from union dues over that branch’s supporting the BDS movement. And Cornell University UE was accused of denying religious exemptions in several cases as well and followed up the rejection with an intrusive “questionnaire” which probed Jewish students for “legally-irrelevant information.”
The situation requires federal oversight and intervention, NRTW said, including Congress’s possibly clarifying that student-employees are not traditional employees and are therefore afforded protections under sections of the Civil Rights Act which apply to the campus.
“These continuing patterns of antisemitism are illegal, immoral, and must be stopped,” the letter continued. “We encourage you to do all that is in your power to investigate and help bring an end to the UE and its affiliates’ nonstop harassment and intimidation of Jewish students … The Trump administration can also use tools available to it under Title VI and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act against colleges who work with unions to create a hostile environment for Jewish students.”
July’s letter is not the first time NRTW has publicized alleged antisemitic abuse in unions representing higher education employees.
In 2024, it represented a group of six City University of New York (CUNY) professors, five of whom are Jewish, who sued to be “freed” from CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) over its passing a resolution during Israel’s May 2021 war with Hamas which declared solidarity with Palestinians and accused the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and crimes against humanity. The group contested New York State’s “Taylor Law,” which it said chained the professors to the union’s “bargaining unit” and denied their right to freedom of speech and association by forcing them to be represented in negotiations by an organization they claim holds antisemitic views.
That same year, NRTW prevailed in a discrimination suit filed to exempt another cohort of Jewish MIT students from paying dues to the Graduate Student Union (GSU). The students had attempted to resist financially supporting GSU’s anti-Zionism, but the union bosses attempted to coerce their compliance, telling them that “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees” to the union.
“All Americans should have a right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics, or any other reason,” NRTW said at the time.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.