Guterres warns at the UN that denying the solution of states "emboldens extremists"

The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, described as “unacceptable” the rejection by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the two-state solution, which does not even listen to the calls of Israel’s friends, in clear reference to United States, and predicted that this opposition will only reinforce the radicals.

“This refusal and the denial of the right of state to the Palestinian people will indefinitely prolong a conflict that has become the greatest threat to global peace and security,” Guterres said in a security council dedicated precisely to that incendiary dispute in the Middle East. . “This rejection will only exacerbate polarization and embolden extremists everywhere,” he warned.

“Any refusal to accept the two-state solution must be firmly rejected. What is the alternative? What would a one-state solution look like with such a large number of Palestinians without a true sense of freedom, rights and dignity? This is inconceivable. The two-state solution is the only one to address the legitimate aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians,” stressed the diplomat at the head of the UN.

For two and a half months, after the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7 and the taking of hostages, Israeli bombings have been causing a massacre in the strip. More than 25,000 people have died, according to Gaza health officials. “The entire population is suffering destruction at a scale and speed without parallel in recent history,” Guterres lamented. “Nothing can justify the collective punishment of the people of Palestine,” he lamented.

The Security Council has long supported the two-state solution living side by side with recognized borders. The Palestinians want a state with the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, all territories occupied and annexed by Israel in the 1967 war.

Instead, Netanyahu has recently said, to add fuel to the war with Hamas, that Israel needs to have control over all the territory west of the Jordan River, which covers the territory of Palestine. “This collides with the principle of sovereignty, but what can be done?” questioned the Israeli leader.

The French Foreign Minister, Stéphane Séjourné, who also spoke at the Security Council since his country presides over the institution this month, spoke out in favor of the same two-state solution and warned against Israel’s attempts to design that future Palestinian state. without Palestine. “It is not up to Israel to decide the fate of the Palestinian population in Gaza, or where they should live in their land, that is up to the Palestinian Authority,” stressed Séjourné, who claimed to speak as a friend of both Israel and Palestine.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al Malki accused Netanyahu of “being driven by a single objective, which is his own political survival at the expense of the survival of millions of Palestinians under Israel’s illegal occupation and peace and security.” of everyone.”

According to Al Maliki, this is the time to admit the state of Palestine to the UN. Nowadays he is just an observer. Taking that step would require the fifteen members of the Security Council to make the recommendation to the 193 members of the General Assembly, where the ground is fertile. The problem is from the start, since the United States, Israel’s ally, holds the right to veto.

“Israel cannot have any veto right to admit the Palestinian state,” Al Maliki noted. “Israel should no longer harbor the illusion that there is somehow a third way by which it can choose to continue occupation, colonialism and apartheid and somehow aspire to regional peace and security,” he insisted. .

Among the fifteen members of the institution (five permanent and ten rotating) and the fifty guests there was a common chorus in their interventions: the two-state solution. A notable exception was that of the Israeli ambassador, Gilad Erdan, who did not mention the issue at all. This diplomat targeted Hamas by declaring that the war will end if those responsible for the October 7 attack surrender and the hostages are released. And he stressed that “Hamas cannot remain in power.”

But his main line of argument consisted of Iran, the country he considers to be the cause of chaos in the area and whose Foreign Minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, was one of the participants in the meeting, something that Erdan found scandalous. “How absurd it is that the Foreign Minister of the number one sponsor of terrorism, who aspires to destabilize the Middle East, is here,” he proclaimed. “Can you imagine Hitler participating in a serious discussion about how to defend the Jews from the Holocaust?” he asked.

The minister of Iran, the main international ally of the Houthi rebels of Yemen who are dedicated to opening fire on cargo ships in the Red Sea, which has brought retaliation from the US and the United Kingdom, explained in the Security Council that his country considers navigation in the Red Sea vital for international trade. He warned, however, that it is interconnected with security in general and, specifically, Gaza.