U.N. chief singles out Israel for harsher treatment than Iran, China, Russia, AI study finds

"A new study by JPPI (the Jewish People Policy Institute), based on advanced artificial-intelligence analysis, points to a systematic pattern of exceptional treatment by UN Secretary-General António Guterres toward the State of Israel, both in the volume of his statements and in their tone, even though his role requires fairness and neutrality toward all countries.

The study, conducted by analysts at JPPI’s Diane and Guilford Glazer Information Center, examined more than 1,100 official statements made by the Portuguese UN Secretary-General since he assumed office in January 2017 through April 2026. These included statements delivered to journalists or published on the UN website. The analysis compared references to Israel with references to a selected group of other countries accused of human-rights violations, including Iran, China, Russia, North Korea, and Qatar.

The analysis included both a quantitative measurement of the scope of the references and a sentiment analysis of the tone of the statements, using advanced AI-based tools.

Volume of statements: Israel leads by a wide margin

The data shows that Israel is the country mentioned most frequently in statements by the UN Secretary-General, by a significant margin over the other countries examined. The volume of references to Israel is higher even than that of major countries such as Russia, and nearly three times higher than the number of references to Iran.

The Tone toward Israel: the most negative

The sentiment analysis yielded similarly stark findings: more than half of the statements about Israel were negative, the highest share among all countries examined. By contrast, statements about countries such as Iran were mostly neutral, with positive references outnumbering negative ones.

Negative statements about China were de minimis, despite criticism by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other human rights organizations of his relative silence on China’s alleged persecution of its Uyghur minority.

Qatar received particularly favorable treatment.

Even when criticism was directed at Russia, its scope was narrower than the criticism directed at Israel.

The study also identifies a clear trend of an intensifying negative tone toward Israel over the course of the UN Secretary-General’s tenure, especially in recent years.

Guterres has, on several occasions, expressed support for Israel’s right to exist and to security; he condemned the October 7 attack, met with families of hostages, and called for their release.

Yet a qualitative analysis of the full body of his statements reinforces the numerical findings and points to a consistent pattern: even when the UN Secretary-General condemns terrorism against Israel, the emphasis quickly shifts to criticism of Israeli policy.

Similarly, even when Israel’s right to security is acknowledged, that recognition is not expressed with the same force as the criticism directed at Israel..."