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Netanyahu demands that Guterres halt ‘baseless’ UN criticism of Israel

The Israeli prime minister also discussed the Iranian threat, normalization with Saudi Arabia and the new economic corridor from India to Europe.

Netanyahu Guterres
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations in New York City on Sept. 20, 2023. Credit: Avi Ohayon/GPO.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, met on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday in New York City.

The Israeli leader stressed Iran’s role in destabilizing the Middle East and the world. He also said that he hopes normalization efforts with Saudi Arabia will succeed and predicted that the economic corridor from India to Europe, which passes through Israel, will “contribute to strengthening the global economy,” per a readout from Netanyahu’s office.

Netanyahu also “demanded” that Guterres “change the attitude of the organization’s institutions towards the State of Israel,” according to the readout, “and said that it was untenable that while major changes for the better were taking place in the entire world and in the Middle East that the U.N. was unaffected and remained steadfast in its hostility to Israel.”

Netanyahu told Guterres that “the time has come for the U.N. to condemn Iranian subversion and Palestinian terrorism against innocent civilians, and to refrain from its baseless criticism of Israel,” the readout added.

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