United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres took an apparent shot at the United States during a visit to a Holocaust memorial in Israel Monday, bringing up the recent violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, while ignoring the anti-Semitic sentiments Israel faces from its neighbors.
In his visit to the region, where he is visiting Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Guterres visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and afterward spoke briefly to the press, where he said that the site was “a tribute to the Jewish people, victims of the most hideous crime against humanity in the history of mankind.”
He also noted that the Holocaust was “not a crazy initiative of a group of paranoid Nazis but it was the combination of millennia of persecution and discrimination of the Jewish people of what we today call anti-Semitism.”
However, instead of mentioning rampant anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic sentiments in the Palestinian territories and neighboring Muslim-majority countries, Guterres then referenced neo-Nazi protests in “a developed country.”
“I was shocked a few [days] ago to listen to the chant of a group of neo-Nazis in a developed country in the world chanting ‘blood and soil’ – slogan of the Nazis,” he said.
The statement was an apparent reference to chants made by white nationalists at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville this month. Guterres has made a number of coy references to the events there while refusing to name President Trump or the U.S. by name in his accusations.
“Well, I do not comment on what presidents say. I affirm principles. And the principles I affirm are very clear. Racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or Islamophobia are … poisoning our societies. And it is absolutely essential for us all to stand up against them everywhere and every time,” he said when asked about Charlottesville at a brief press conference outside the Security Council this month.
In his remarks at Yad Vashem, Guterres called the events at the unnamed “developed country” a “dramatic demonstration that it is our duty to do everything possible and, as Secretary General of the United Nations, I fully assume that commitment to do everything possible to fight anti-Semitism in all its expressions.”
Guterres is unlikely to receive much support in criticizing, however obliquely, the U.S. from Israeli officials, as the U.S. and Israel are allied in pushing back against what they see as an anti-Israel bias at the U.N.
This week, both countries are pushing for a tougher mandate for the U.N.’s peacekeeping force in Lebanon – calling on UNIFIL to be given a mandate with a greater focus on tackling the buildup of illegal weapons by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Haley, in particular, has grilled the Security Council for “obsessing” over Israel while refusing even to name Hezbollah in its resolutions.
The Security Council is expected to vote on the mandate on Wednesday.
Adam Shaw is a Breitbart News politics reporter based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY.
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