Opinion: UN Secretary General’s grievous failure of diplomacy

CNN — How did it come to pass that the world’s top diplomat, the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, inadvertently sparked a diplomatic firestorm with his words? Frida Ghitis CNN At a meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday, Guterres called the October 7 massacres in which the terrorist group Hamas killed more than 1,400 people in Israel and took hundreds of hostages to underground tunnels in Gaza, “appalling,” and said that “nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians, or the launching of rockets against civilian targets.” But he went on to say, “It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.” Guterres then added a long list of Israeli misdeeds and — perhaps unconsciously expecting the reaction that followed — said, “But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. Excellencies, even war has rules.” To some, in Israel and elsewhere, Guterres’ words sounded like a thinly veiled justification for Hamas’ attack on October 7. None other than Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, explained the Holocaust in those terms just last month, telling Palestinian TV that Hitler “fought the Jews because they were dealing in usury and money,” and Europeans were against the Jews “because of their role in society.” Guterres may not have meant to, but he did take a step toward justifying the massacres, playing right into Israelis’ mistrust. “The deal was so good,” Clinton wrote, “I couldn’t believe anyone would be foolish enough to let it go,” adding, “Arafat never said no; he just couldn’t bring himself to say yes.” In 2008, Israel’s then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in the final weeks of his premiership before he resigned, offered Palestinians a near total withdrawal of the West Bank, a land link to Gaza, some Jerusalem neighborhoods and international control of the Old City of Jerusalem.