The World Holocaust Remembrance Center — Yad Vashem — on Wednesday responded to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and his apparent effort to shift blame onto Israel for the horrific October 7 Hamas attack in which the terrorists slaughtered more than 1,200 people, including infants, women, and the elderly, all while raping and kidnapping others.
In a U.N. Security Council meeting on Israel and Hamas, Guterres commented, “It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.”
He spoke as the U.N. failed to outright condemn the door-to-door killings, mass rapes, and kidnappings executed by Hamas terrorists, while also declining to support Israel’s right to self-defense, instead calling for “humanitarian pauses” in the fight against Hamas.
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Joel B. Pollak / Breitbart News“The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation,” Guterres said, as Breitbart News reported. “They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.”
Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan responded to the remarks by directly addressing just who was the perpetrator of the horrific attack and why Israel will not stand by and allow Jews to be slaughtered.
He denounced the trend to “contextualize” events, saying the ambitions of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas for the total destruction of Israel must be defeated:
The slaughter of Jews by Hamas on October 7th was genocidal in its intents and immeasurably brutal in its form. Part of why it differs from the Holocaust is because
Jews have today a state and an army. We are not defenseless and at the mercy of others.However, it puts to test the sincerity of world leaders, intellectuals and influencers that come to Yad Vashem and pledge “Never Again”. Those who seek to “understand”, look for a justifying context, do not categorically condemn the perpetrators, and do not call for the unconditional and immediate release of the abducted – fail the test.
UN Secretary General António Guterres failed the test.
Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, was established in 1953. It is located in Jerusalem, dedicated to Holocaust commemoration, documentation, research and education.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen also said “there is no cause for such a massacre — shame on him!” as response to the secretary-general’s view of the Hamas attack.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated to reflect a revised number on the death toll from the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel. The Israeli government estimate of 1,400 was revised to around 1,200, according to Reuters.
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Joel B. Pollak / Breitbart NewsIsrael’s most senior diplomatic official intensified his feud with Guterres, saying he will refuse to meet the veteran Portuguese socialist in the wake of his speech.
“I will not meet with the UN Secretary-General. After the October 7th massacre, there is no place for a balanced approach,” Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen posted on X, ahead of a scheduled meeting with Guterres.
I will not meet with the UN Secretary-General. After the October 7th massacre, there is no place for a balanced approach. Hamas must be erased off the face of the planet!
— אלי כהן | Eli Cohen (@elicoh1) October 24, 2023
Meanwhile Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday said the Hamas terrorist group isn’t a terror organization, but a “liberation group” trying to protect its lands and citizens.
In an address to his ruling party’s legislators, Erdogan also said he has canceled plans to visit Israel as part of his country’s policy of normalizing its relations with the Jewish state, adding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “misused our goodwill.”
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