Will Trump's return shape UN chief Antonio Guterres’s tone on Israel? – analysis

Antonio Guterres's dialogue about Israel has radically shifted over the past few years, but can the incoming administration fix it?

 U.S. President Donald Trump greets UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres during the "Global Call to Protect Religious Freedom" event at U.N. headquarters in New York City, New York, US, September 23, 2019.  (photo credit: JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS)
U.S. President Donald Trump greets UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres during the "Global Call to Protect Religious Freedom" event at U.N. headquarters in New York City, New York, US, September 23, 2019.
(photo credit: JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS)

As secretary-general of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres should want to be able to play some kind of constructive role in the current Middle East crisis.

To do that, however, he needs a modicum of credibility in Jerusalem. This is something he seemed to understand – and even strive toward – in the first few months of his tenure in 2017, after taking over for Ban Ki-moon as head of the world body.

During this period, he spoke out against antisemitism, worked to integrate Israeli diplomats in senior UN positions, affirmed the Jewish connection to Jerusalem – that seems like a no-brainer but is anything but inside the UN system – and disputed accusations that Israel was an apartheid state.

He seemed to want to convince Jerusalem – or perhaps Washington, which then had a new president (Donald Trump) and a staunchly pro-Israel ambassador to the UN (Nikki Haley) – that he could be a quasi-honest broker.

This period lasted even more than just a few months. In fact, in November 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, the World Jewish Congress bestowed its highest honor – the Theodor Herzl Award – on Guterres, who was then completing his fourth year as UN secretary-general.

 United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks to the media during a visit to the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Lviv, Ukraine August 18, 2022. (credit: REUTERS/GLEB GARANICH)
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks to the media during a visit to the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Lviv, Ukraine August 18, 2022. (credit: REUTERS/GLEB GARANICH)

Aged like milk

WJC President Ron Lauder praised Guterres, telling him that the award “comes with our deepest appreciation to you for being the voice of fairness and equity that the State of Israel and the Jewish people have been hoping for at the United Nations for a long, long time.”

Lauder said that Guterres refuses to “bow to the pressure of those who seek to isolate, demonize, and delegitimize the only Jewish state in the world,” and that through his words and deeds over many years, he has proven to be “a true and devoted friend of the Jewish people and of the State of Israel.”

Fast forward four years to see just how badly this tribute has aged. Today that all seems so long ago.

For instance, Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that recent comments Guterres made regarding Israel showed an inability to distinguish between good and evil.

Danon was referring specifically to a statement Guterres put out after an Israeli military action against the Houthis last week that followed successive nights of Houthi rocket fire on Israel.


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“The Secretary-General is gravely concerned about intensified escalation in Yemen and Israel,” a spokesman for Guterres said. “Israeli airstrikes today on Sanaa International Airport, the Red Sea ports, and power stations in Yemen are especially alarming.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein was even sharper in his criticism than Danon, calling this a “disgrace."

“Israel has been attacked hundreds of times by Houthi terrorists. Millions of Israelis are being terrorized by Houthi missile attacks every night. All of these attacks on Israel were unprovoked and carried out by terrorists operating 2,000 kilometers away from Israel.

“And yet, Secretary-General Guterres couldn’t bring himself to mention that the State of Israel and its citizens have been relentlessly attacked by the Houthis – and that Israel was acting in self-defense. What a disgrace,” he wrote on X.

Guterres’s comment, and his blindness to the Houthi attack on Israel that triggered Israel’s response, is not new, but rather part of a pattern. The same dynamic was at work in October, after Iran fired 180 ballistic missiles at Israel.

Here was Guterres’s response the next morning: “I condemn the broadening of the Middle East conflict with escalation after escalation. This must stop. We absolutely need a ceasefire.”

Again, no mention of the unprovoked attack on Israel by Iran, or a direct condemnation of the Islamic Republic for trying to murder Israeli citizens.

As a result of that tweet, then-foreign minister Israel Katz declared Guterres a persona non grata, saying:

“Anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel, as nearly all the countries of the world have done, does not deserve to set foot on Israeli soil,” Katz said in a statement, adding in a later social media post that Guterres demonstrated “antisemitic and anti-Israel conduct.”

Katz’s declaring Guterres persona non grata resulted not only from Guterres’s ill-conceived tweet following the Iranian attack but rather numerous actions he has taken and statements he has made since October 7.

A couple of weeks earlier, Katz decried Guterres for standing on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing and blaming Israel for the humanitarian situation in Gaza, “without condemning in any way the Hamas-ISIS terrorists who plunder humanitarian aid, without condemning UNRWA that cooperates with terrorists — and without calling for the immediate, unconditional release of all Israeli hostages.”

And that was not Guterres’s most egregious step, from an Israeli point of view. That distinction is reserved for comments he made shortly after the October 7 attack, telling the UN Security Council that “Nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring, and kidnapping of civilians – or the launching of rockets against civilian targets. It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.”

This contextualization of Hamas’s pogrom led to calls in Jerusalem for Guterres to resign, calls that only got louder and louder as it emerged that several UNRWA employees were involved in the massacre, as the number of Hamas members and supporters working for UNRWA became public knowledge, and as more and more Hamas positions and arms storerooms were found in, under, or near UNRWA facilities.

But just as Israel pays little heed to what Guterres says – his condemnations and warnings have no impact at all on Israeli policy – so too have Israel’s condemnations of the UN secretary-general had little impact on his actions or behavior.

Are Israel and Guterres, therefore, condemned to this fruitless exchange of the deaf until his tenure ends – mercifully, in Israel’s point of view – in another two years’ time, at the end of 2026?

Maybe.

Incoming Trump administration

However, there may be one factor that could change this dynamic: the new US administration.

Guterres’ original conciliatory tone toward Israel may have been influenced by the pro-Israel policies of Trump and Haley’s passionate defense of the Jewish state in the world body. He likely recognized that a biased approach toward Israel would come up against stiff opposition from Washington, whom Guterres does care about, and not only from Jerusalem, whose protestations don’t move him.

If that is the case, the dynamics could shift dramatically. Trump’s nominee for UN ambassador, Elise Stefanik, is as stalwart and outspoken a supporter of Israel as Haley.

For instance, every day since October 11, 2024 she has posted the following on her X account, with only the number of days in captivity changing: “It has been 370 days since Hamas terrorists abducted innocent civilians during the barbaric Oct 7th attack in Israel. There are over 100 still being held hostage in Gaza including SEVEN Americans. We MUST bring them home now.”

Two days earlier, she posted this: “How many UNRWA employees need to be exposed as Hamas terrorists before @antonioguterres realizes that @UNRWA = Hamas? It is past time to return to President Trump’s policies and permanently cut off all funding to @UNRWA.”

Come January 20, that will be the strong message Guterres will hear not only from Israel, but also from the US, and it should become clear in no time whether the UN chief adjusts his tone. If he does, the reason will be clear: not because of pushback from Jerusalem, but rather stronger opposition from Washington.