-OpEd-
BERLIN — That is one special kind of achievement. On the very anniversary of the United Nations’ creation, 78 years to the day after the ratification of its founding document — a treaty dedicated to peace, the rights of peoples, the dignity and worth of individuals — that the UN’s chief tramples on so much of what is enshrined in that treaty.
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Not that the expectations for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, or the UN itself for that matter, are particularly high. They haven’t been for a long time. The suspicion that the United Nations has become the opposite of what it originally stood for is not new per se: Authoritarian states have made it a habit to exploit the organization to pass themselves off as democracies. Russia, in particular, has become a master at this.
It’s also worth noting that Israel has been consistently targeted with a multitude of resolutions for decades — an estimated 140 since 2015, more than twice as many as have been leveled against other states during that period.
Unfathomable affront
Still, Secretary-General Guterres managed to surpass every expectation, or lack thereof. He did so on the day when a group of journalists witnessed, for the first time, the unbearable images of what was done to people in Israel, to Jews, in the Hamas terror attack on Oct. 7.
Many were left speechless. Not the UN’s chief. The barbaric murder of children, women, men did not happen in a “vacuum,” he said. This is not only a relativization of the worst terrorist attack in recent history; it is an unfathomable affront to the dignity of the victims, their families, and all people.
“Human rights” are the epitome of hypocritical or foolish idealism.
There is a certain subcommittee within the UN, called the Human Rights Commission — another body that has done very little lately that is in line with its mission. Yet, as a reminder, its founding document states that the contempt for human rights led to “acts of barbarism that have outraged the conscience of mankind.”
Guterres should resign
These “acts of barbarism” referred, primarily, to the Holocaust. It was the reason behind the fundamental rethinking, after 1945, of the very definition of what human rights are. Antonio Guterres may have heard that on that horrifying Saturday, almost three weeks ago, some 1,400 Jews were brutally murdered.
German-born U.S. philosopher Hannah Arendt, who was almost always right and almost always misunderstood, wrote a long time ago that “human rights” are the epitome of hypocrisy and foolish idealism. The Secretary-General of the United Nations seems intent on proving that all over again.
Guterres should resign. But does it even matter with a body that has long been working against all the principles on which it was founded?
