Photo by
Kobi Gideon/GPO/TPS-IL on 27 January, 2025
Israeli President Slams International Institutions in UN Address
Jerusalem, 27 January, 2025 (TPS-IL) -- Israeli President Isaac denounced international legal institutions for their failure to respond to Hamas in an International Holocaust Remembrance Day address at the United Nations on Monday.
“The Holocaust was the greatest catastrophe in the history of our people and of all humanity. But precisely from the unimaginable wreckage arose a voice that resonated throughout the entire family of nations. A voice that called for repair, healing, and building together. A voice that led both to the establishment of the United Nations and international courts; and to the establishment of the State of Israel – an act supported by the family of nations and while doing historical justice,” Herzog said.
The post-World War II feeling in establishing the UN and its institutions came from what Herzog called, “A deep faith and hope that international institutions would forever be committed to preventing these heinous crimes from happening again – to Jews or any other people, and would be committed to justice – for the sake of all humanity.”
Said Herzog, “But this moral beacon has been eroded time and again. I remember such a moral low point in November 1975, when the UN General Assembly despicably declared the national movement of the Jewish people – Zionism – a form of racism.” Herzog noted that resolution 3379 was passed on the anniversary of Germany’s Kristallnacht pogrom and not revoked until 1991.
“Today we find ourselves once again at a dangerous crossroads in the history of the United Nations. Instead of fulfilling its mission and courageously fighting against a global epidemic of murderous and despicable jihadist terrorism, this assembly has repeatedly demonstrated moral bankruptcy. International forums and institutions such as the International Criminal Court choose, with outrageous hypocrisy, to protect the perpetrators of atrocities. They blur the distinction between good and evil and create a distorted symmetry between the victim and the murderous monster.”
He was referring to the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, the first time warrants have been issued against leaders from a democratic country. The court also issued a warrant for Hamas commander Mohammed Deif. Although he was killed in an airstrike in July, Hamas never confirmed Deif’s death.
Said Herzog, “I ask you – how is this possible?! How is it possible that international institutions, established as an anti-Nazi alliance, allow murderous antisemitic views to flourish unhindered, in the shadow of the greatest massacre of Jews since World War II. How is it possible that the moral compass of so many in the family of nations has become so distorted that they no longer recognize the obvious reality : Just as terrorists use civilians as human shields, so they also abuse international institutions, undermining the most basic and fundamental reason for their establishment. How is it possible that those institutions that were established in the wake of the greatest genocide in history – the Holocaust – distort the definition of “genocide” in favor of one and only goal: attacking the State of Israel and the Jewish people; while embracing the despicable phenomenon of “reversing the Holocaust.”
He said “antisemitism, barbarism, cruelty, and racism” continue to thrive “because too many of the nations represented here – do not confront them, do not unanimously condemn them, and do not fight against them.”
International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorates the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland by Soviet soldiers in 1945.
At least 1,200 people were killed, and 252 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7. Of the 90 remaining hostages, more than 30 have been declared dead.
