Herzog at UN slams its ‘moral bankruptcy,’ says terrorists have weaponized it
Speaking at ceremony on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, president accuses ICC and ICJ of ‘manipulating the definition of genocide for the sole purpose of attacking Israel’
Amy Spiro is a reporter and writer with The Times of Israel
President Isaac Herzog used a speech at the United Nations marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day to slam the UN and international courts for their “hypocrisy” and attacks on the State of Israel.
Addressing a ceremony at the UN in New York on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Herzog said that the global bodies formed in the wake of the Holocaust and aimed at preventing crimes against humanity, including the UN, the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, have “blurred the distinction between good and evil” and allowed “antisemitic genocidal doctrines to flourish uninterrupted.”
Herzog noted in his address that his maternal great-uncle, Holocaust survivor Hersch Lauterpacht, served as a prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials and went on to help establish the ICJ, later serving on the court as a judge.
“He did so out of deep faith, and hope, that the international institutions would forever be committed to preventing these heinous crimes from ever happening again — to the Jewish people or any other people,” he said.
Decades later, Herzog said, the UN has found itself at a “dangerous crossroads.”
“Rather than fulfilling its purpose, and fighting courageously against a global epidemic of jihadist, murderous and abhorrent terror, time and again this assembly has exhibited moral bankruptcy,” the president said.
He accused the ICC of “outrageous hypocrisy and protection of the perpetrators of the atrocities.”
Herzog said the ICC and other global institutions, which have accused Israel of war crimes over its conduct in the fight against Hamas in Gaza, “blur the distinction between good and evil, creating a distorted symmetry between the victim and the murderous monster.”
The president asked: “How is it possible that international institutions, which began as an anti-Nazi alliance, are allowing antisemitic genocidal doctrines to flourish uninterrupted in the wake of the largest massacre of Jews since World War II?”
Just as terrorists use human shields, Herzog continued, “they also weaponize the international institutions, undermining the most basic, fundamental reason for their establishment. How is it possible that the same institutions established in the wake of the greatest genocide in history – the Holocaust — are manipulating the definition of genocide for the sole purpose of attacking Israel and the Jewish people?”
At the start of his address, Herzog said that while Israel stands strong as a “symbol of survival,” its people are anguished while dozens of hostages captured by Hamas on October 7 remain captive in Gaza.
“I stand before you as president of a nation that is determined and proud, and yet – anguished and incomplete,” he said.
“Although the Israeli people have been overcome with emotion seeing seven of our daughters at last emerge heroically from hell – still, 90 Israelis and foreign nationals remain in Hamas captivity,” Herzog added, referring to the release since the start of the current ceasefire of Doron Steinbrecher, Emily Damari, Romi Gonen, Naama Levy, Daniella Gilboa, Liri Albag, and Karina Ariev.
“We are anxiously awaiting six more to be freed this week, and awaiting all the others,” Herzog continued. “I call on all representatives in this General Assembly, all who consider themselves part of the civilized world, to throw your weight to ensure our hostages return to their homes – every single one of them. Bring them back home now!”
Herzog recited a special prayer in both Hebrew and English, calling for the safe return of the hostages, who “are enduring subhuman conditions, without essential primary health care, without Red Cross visitations, and without any compliance with international law, treaties, or agreements.”
The president was accompanied to the UN by the parents of Omer Neutra, a US-Israeli lone soldier who was killed in battle on October 7, and whose body is being held by Hamas. His death was not confirmed until last month.
Omer’s great grandfather Yosef Neutra “was a Holocaust survivor and a freedom fighter who survived the Shoah carrying just a few coins in his pocket,” said Herzog. “Louise, Omer’s aunt, took her grandfather Yosef’s coins, and fashioned them into the yellow ribbon hostages symbol — surrounded by barbed wire.”
