Prof. Anne Bayefsky blasts Guterres U.N. speech: 'This blood libel is patently false'

Professor Anne Bayefsky, President of Human Rights Voices and Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, sharply criticized United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday following his address to the UN General Assembly in which he attacked Israel.

In his speech, Guterres referred to the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, before accusing Israel of carrying out killing and destruction in Gaza on a scale unprecedented during his tenure as Secretary-General.

Bayefsky accused Guterres of applying a consistent double standard to Israel and recalled his controversial comments shortly after the October 7 massacre, when he said the Hamas attack “did not happen in a vacuum."

“Within days, Guterres explained the mass torture, rape, kidnapping and slaughter of Jews on October 7th; it did ‘not come in a vacuum,’ he said," Bayefsky stated.

“Today, Guterres accused Israel of engaging in a ‘scale of killing and destruction’ that he had never witnessed in his entire ten-year term as Secretary-General," she continued.

Bayefsky described the comparison implicit in Guterres’ remarks as a “blood libel," arguing that Israel’s military actions in Gaza constitute legitimate self-defense following the Hamas attack.

“This blood libel analogizes lawful and legitimate Israeli self-defense to deliberate Palestinian mass murder of civilians," she charged.

She also rejected Guterres’ description of the scale of the destruction in Gaza, pointing to a series of other bloody conflicts around the world during his tenure.

“It is patently false on its face, just considering the scale of destruction and barbarism in Sudan, Yemen, Ukraine, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Syria, Afghanistan, Mexico, and South Sudan," Bayefsky said.

Bayefsky went on to accuse Guterres of antisemitism and argued that his remarks reflected a broader problem within the United Nations itself.

“His antisemitism has been pathological. But the real lesson here is not just another series of lies from an antisemite at the top of the UN hierarchy," she said. “After all, a former Secretary-General had a Nazi past."

“The lesson is that the United Nations is a very dangerous - lethal - organization with enormous power, a power handed to it by the nations of the free world," Bayefsky continued.

She singled out the United States’ role in supporting and hosting the organization, arguing that this enables the UN to continue exerting what she described as a damaging influence on international attitudes toward Israel.

“In particular, it survives and is empowered to wreak havoc with humanity's moral compass by the United States, which literally houses the fifth column in its midst," she said.

Bayefsky concluded by calling for a fundamental change in the international community’s relationship with the UN, accusing the organization of hostility toward Israel and Jewish self-determination.

“Until this changes, you can count on one thing: this global institution dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state and the denial of Jewish self-determination will not stop until it succeeds or is thoroughly disenfranchised."