UN special rapporteurs are ‘totally out of control,’ Secretary-General Guterres admits in interview
The United Nations has several special rapporteurs who are “totally out of control” in their perspective on Israel, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres admitted in a Financial Times interview this week.
“Now that UN Secretary-General Guterres is leaving office, admitting that many of the UN’s human rights rapporteurs have gone ‘totally out of control,’ it’s time to ask who let them go out of control in the first place,” Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon told The Jerusalem Post. “It happened on his watch!”
Guterres strongly denied that the UN as a whole has an institutional bias against Israel, saying, “I totally refuse the idea of bias. On the contrary, I think we have been on the right side of history.”
He said the UN was “defending what is necessary for peace to come to the Middle East,” arguing that there are two peoples, “with a few million each,” and “no way one can destroy the other,” making reconciliation the best course.
Guterres also discussed US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace and its efforts to stabilize Gaza, saying he was not concerned it would supplant or replace the UN.
“The truth is, if you look at what happens in Gaza, with the measures that were taken and you look at the progress that was made, let’s be honest, it is not for the UN to be worried,” he said. “It is for others to be worried about what they are doing.”
He criticized the US for vetoing UN bills concerning Israel and Russia for vetoing bills related to the Russia-Ukraine war, saying it was time for “superpowers to understand the limits of their power.”
Guterres also warned that “a sense of impunity is now prevailing” among UN superpowers and said the Security Council’s leverage has weakened because it cannot tell countries they “must behave [or] they’ll be punished.”
