From António Guterres’s comparison of Gaza with other conflicts to sweeping condemnations from world leaders, the speeches in New York revived a long-running debate over whether Israel is judged by standards applied consistently elsewhere
Listen to some of the speeches at this year’s UN General Assembly in New York, and a question quickly arises: Is Israel being judged by a standard applied to no other country?
In his final address to the General Assembly as secretary-general, António Guterres made an extraordinary comparison. Speaking about Gaza, he said the war had produced “a scale of killing and destruction unlike anything I have witnessed in all my years as secretary-general.” Really?
In the same speech, Guterres called Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine a brutal war in violation of the UN Charter and spoke of continuing attacks on civilians and infrastructure. He also condemned the war in Sudan.
So what standard was he using to make that comparison? The total number killed? The proportion of civilians? The speed of the destruction? The percentage of buildings damaged or destroyed? He did not say.
His years at the UN offer plenty of grim comparisons. The Syrian civil war continued through much of his tenure, leaving hundreds of thousands dead. The United Nations Development Programme estimated that Yemen’s war had caused 377,000 direct and indirect deaths by the end of 2021. The 2020-2022 Tigray war killed hundreds of thousands, with African Union mediator Olusegun Obasanjo citing an estimate of roughly 600,000 deaths.
Sudan is another catastrophe. A study published in The Lancet Global Health estimated more than 61,000 deaths from all causes in Khartoum state during the first 14 months of the war, with evidence that the nationwide toll was far higher.
Nigeria belongs in the conversation as well. Years of jihadist and communal violence have killed Christians and Muslims alike. Christian advocacy organizations put the number of Christians killed over the past decade and a half in the tens of thousands, although independent analysts dispute attempts to characterize all of that violence as the targeted killing of Christians.
Gaza’s suffering is real and immense. But against that record, Guterres’s comparison deserves to be questioned.
And Guterres is hardly alone.
French President Emmanuel Macron told the UN General Assembly: “Hamas has never been active in the West Bank.” That was simply wrong. Hamas has long maintained cells and carried out attacks in the West Bank, although it does not govern there. A French diplomatic official later said Macron had meant to say that Hamas does not rule the West Bank.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has repeatedly attacked Israel in equally sweeping terms. Under Erdoğan, Turkish forces have carried out repeated military operations inside Syria and Iraq, while Turkish troops remain in northern Cyprus decades after Turkey’s 1974 military intervention. Yet at the General Assembly he accused Israel of possessing a “genocidal mindset that can never get enough of killing.”
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva likewise used his UN address to accuse Netanyahu’s government of “genocide” in Gaza. Lula has repeatedly used that term to describe Israel’s conduct while also condemning Hamas’ terrorist attacks.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez declared before the same General Assembly that his government “condemns without qualification” what he described as the genocide that Netanyahu “continues to perpetrate” in Gaza.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II went further, declaring: “This Israeli government’s expansionist appetite is now a regional threat.” Claims like that should face the same scrutiny that Israel’s statements about its enemies and its security face.
Other leaders directed their anger at the institutions themselves.
Argentine President Javier Milei delivered perhaps the harshest critique of the United Nations. He called it a “useless organization” that had become a vehicle for “a caste of fatally arrogant parasites masquerading as well-intentioned bureaucrats.” He accused the UN of allowing chaos, violence and terrorism to flourish, sheltering dictatorships and systematically voting against Israel while remaining silent about other abuses.
President Donald Trump turned his fire on the International Criminal Court. In his Sept. 22 address, President Trump called the ICC an “out-of-control institution” and urged its member countries to withdraw. His administration has imposed sanctions on court officials and has sharply opposed the ICC’s actions against Israeli leaders and its previous investigations involving American forces.
Neither Milei’s criticism nor President Trump’s proves that Israel is being treated unfairly. But they are not alone in arguing that international institutions have become selective about the standards they enforce and the language they use.
That leaves the basic question: Why does Israel so often appear to be judged by a different standard?
Criticism of Israel is not antisemitism. The suffering of Palestinians in Gaza is immense and deserves serious scrutiny. Israel’s actions, like those of any other state, should be examined, criticized and, where appropriate, condemned.
What should not change from one conflict to another is the standard being applied.
The UN has documented atrocities in Syria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Ukraine and elsewhere, and Guterres himself has condemned many of them. Yet he still placed Gaza beyond every other catastrophe he has witnessed during his decade in office without explaining the measure behind that judgment. If the standard changes depending on the country being judged, people are right to ask why.
That is where moral clarity can turn into moral inversion. Selective outrage can leave some victims feeling that their suffering counts for less. And when criticism of the Jewish state rests on standards applied nowhere else, it gives antisemites an opportunity to dress an ancient prejudice in the language of international law, human rights and diplomacy.
