MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Guterres becomes persona non grata in Israel

Israel will continue to defend itself “with or without António Guterres,” Katz stressed

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres was declared persona non grata Wednesday by Israel after failing to condemn Tuesday's rocket attack by Iran, Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced on X. The former Portuguese Prime Minister has thus been banned “from entering the country,” Katz explained.

 Tel Aviv's top diplomat also noted that the measure was appropriate for “anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran's heinous attack on Israel, as almost every country in the world has done.”

“This is a Secretary-General who has yet to denounce the massacre and sexual atrocities committed by Hamas murderers on October 7, nor has he led any efforts to declare them a terrorist organization,” Katz also pointed out days after Israeli Prime Minister took the stand at the organization's General Assembly last week to criticized the UN's approach at the ongoing conflict in the Middle East involving terrorist organizations such as the Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah.

“A Secretary-General who gives backing to terrorists, rapists, and murderers from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and now Iran—the mothership of global terror—will be remembered as a stain on the history of the UN,” Katz also argued.

“Israel will continue to defend its citizens and uphold its national dignity, with or without António Guterres,” he concluded.

The Portuguese diplomat's position contrasted with that of US President Joseph Biden, who on Tuesday stressed: “Make no mistake, the United States is fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel.”

Meanwhile, Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris pointed out that “Iran is not only a threat to Israel, Iran is also a threat to American personnel in the region, American interests and innocent civilians across the region who suffer at the hands of Iran-based and backed terrorist proxies.”

In addition, US State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller noted that “every nation in the world must join us in condemning” Iran’s attack. “What you saw Iran do today came to the defense of a terrorist organization,” he added while rejecting Iran’s claim that its attack was in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July. “This event had nothing to do with Iran’s sovereignty. It has to do with the fact that a number of the terrorist organizations that Iran has set up for years as a way to undermine and attack the State of Israel have been weakened first over the past few months and then most recently over the past few weeks,” Miller also said. In his view, the fact that Iranian officials died as Israel gunned down Hezbollah's chief Hassan Nasrallah would prove that Tehran's envoys “were meeting with terrorist leaders,” Miller also argued.

Earlier this year, Katz declared Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva persona non grata for the ”grave antisemitic attack” of likening Israel's deployment in Gaza to Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany.