By Pedro Tadeu, columnist of the Diario de Noticias, Lisbon
Many of the readers of this text have already read the news: the Israeli Foreign Minister asked the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, “what world do you live in?” and the country’s ambassador to the United Nations even demanded the immediate resignation of the Portuguese.
The Israeli outrage comes after Guterres said, in the Security Council, that “the Palestinian people were subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They saw their land constantly devastated by settlements, devastated by violence, their economy crushed, their populations displaced, and their houses demolished”.
It is worth noting that Guterres stressed that “the suffering of the Palestinian people cannot justify the terrible attacks by Hamas”, but that this, in turn, cannot justify the “clear violations of International Law in Gaza” that Israel is committing, victimizing the Palestinian civilian population.
This led the Israeli minister to suggest that Guterres “sees the massacre committed by the Nazi terrorists of Hamas in a distorted and immoral way”, associating the name of the UN secretary general with any complacency towards the Holocaust .
The question posed by the Israeli politician is, however, very interesting. In fact, what world does António Guterres live in?
Is it a world that defends the human rights enshrined by the UN for all humanity, or is it a world where the defense of human rights can only be invoked when it corresponds to the protection of the interests of the most powerful nations on the planet?
Is it a world where the right of a country to fight with weapons in hand against the military aggression of an external invader is universally recognized, or is it a world that selects, according to the convenience of the dominant powers, the people who can fight? for survival?
Is it a world that recognizes the right to self-determination of all nations, or is it a world that accepts the imposition of dominion by some over others?
It is a world where both a deadly attack on hundreds of young people at a music festival and the indiscriminate bombing of defenseless populations in a besieged region are equally classified as “terrorism”, or this epithet is only used when it is useful for propaganda. on the stronger side of this confrontation?
Is it a world in which cutting off electricity, fuel and water to two million people is considered a war crime, or is it a world that legitimizes, tolerates or is indifferent to this atrocity?
Is it a world where the attempted forced displacement of around a million people deserves firm international condemnation, or is it a world where consciences are cleared with benevolent and inconsequential requests for “proportionality” towards the author of this barbarism?
Is it a world that rightly considers it abject to be taken hostage in any type of military combat, or is it a world that has been hiding or ignoring, for decades, a process of ethnic cleansing and apartheid of an entire people?
Is it a world in which a banal ceasefire request discussed in the United Nations Security Council can be prevented, as has happened now, thanks to the vote of a single country: the United States of America?
Is it a world in which it is legitimate and common to bomb hospitals, homes and schools? Is it a world where savagery is not fought with civilization, but with even greater savagery? Yes, what world does António Guterres live in? What world do we and he want to continue living in?
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Annex :
Antonio Guterres . . . voice of conscience in our times
Guterres, since he took charge of the United Nations as its ninth Secretary General, has travelled to continents and countries around the world and made his views known about the ills which assail people in our times. The UN Secretary General’s voicing of the realities in Palestine swiftly drew the impertinence — let us not call it ire — of Israel’s diplomats present in the chamber. The foreign minister of Tel Aviv’s far right government, unable to stomach an articulation of facts, cancelled a meeting with him. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, who has gone around in recent days disseminating propaganda aimed at justifying the atrocities committed by his government in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, demanded that Guterres resign.https://www.tbsnews.net/thoughts/antonio-guterres-voice-conscience-our-times-726582