Israeli president calls UN morally bankrupt on Holocaust anniversary

Israel's president attacked the UN General Assembly in a speech on Monday marking the 80th anniversary of the Holocaust, accusing the body of exhibiting moral bankruptcy and failing to confront anti-Semitism.
Isaac Herzog addressed the forum during worldwide commemorations of the Holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered.
Today, we find ourselves yet again at a dangerous crossroads in the history of this institution, Herzog said at the New York headquarters of the United Nations which Israel has repeatedly condemned since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023.
Rather than fulfilling its purpose and fighting courageously against a global epidemic of jihadists, murderers, and abhorrent terror, time and again this assembly has exhibited moral bankruptcy.
UN bodies like the International Criminal Court, which issued a warrant for the arrest of Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu, opt for outrageous hypocrisy and protection of the perpetrators of the atrocities.
How is it possible that international institutions, which began as an anti-Nazi alliance, are allowing anti-Semitic genocidal doctrines to flourish uninterrupted in the wake of the largest massacre of Jews since World War II? he added referring to the October 7 attacks.
Hamas's October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,317 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
- 'We must stand up' -
Ahead of Herzog's denunciation of the UN, its Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the appalling October 7 terror attacks by Hamas -- as well as the rising tide of anti-Semitism globally.
Today, our world is fractured and dangerous. Eighty years since the Holocaust's end, anti-Semitism is still with us -- fueled by the same lies and loathing that made the Nazi genocide possible. And it is rising, he said on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp and International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Indisputable historical facts are being distorted, diminished, and dismissed. Efforts are being made to recast and rehabilitate Nazis and their collaborators. We must stand up to these outrages.
The history of the Holocaust shows us what can happen when people choose not to see and not to act.

(2025/01/28 18:24)