Sep 23, 2026. Yair Lapid issued a sharp public rebuke against UN Secretary-General António Guterres, as a direct response to a speech by the UN chief who claimed he had "never seen killing and destruction like Gaza" during his entire tenure as Secretary-General.

Lapid pointed out that during Guterres’s time in office, 600,000 people were massacred or starved in Ethiopia, 377,000 died in Yemen, 150,000 were killed in Sudan (with 12 million displaced), and hundreds of thousands were buried in Ukraine. "You simply looked the other way"; "You didn't see it? They died before your eyes."

Yair Lapid concluded with his harshest charge, telling Guterres that he chose to look the other way during those other global conflicts "because the Jews couldn't be blamed."

The UN Secretary-General has faced repeated accusations from Israeli officials of harboring an institutional bias and a critical agenda against Israel. After the Oct 7 massacre, Israeli officials have since heavily condemned Guterres's statements—such as noting the attacks "did not happen in a vacuum"—accusing him of drawing false moral equivalences, and eventually declaring him persona non grata in Israel in late 2024.

These severe criticisms have been echoed, shared, or subscribed to by several major global and local Jewish communities and organizations. While the World Jewish Congress stated that it was "deeply troubling to witness the shift in tone and moral equivalence emerging from parts of today's United Nations leadership," particularly following the UN's blacklisting decisions regarding conflict-related violence, the European Jewish Association publicly questioned Guterres’s leadership over UN special rapporteurs whom Guterres himself admitted had gone "completely out of control" regarding their anti-Israel bias.

The Porto Jewish community in Portugal has accused Guterres of hypocrisy, arguing his focus on historical Jewish suffering in Portugal serves to mask a damaging stance toward the modern Jewish state. In an open letter published by the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS), Gabriel Senderowicz sharply criticized Guterres for focusing heavily on dead Jewish history while failing to champion living Jewish growth and safety.

Senderowicz wrote that Guterres chooses to speak "not of Jewish life but of death," preferring to praise abstract future drawings of a state-backed museum in Lisbon while turning a blind eye to how his broader diplomatic positions impact actual living Jewish communities threatened by surging modern antisemitism.

There is an absolute consensus across Jewish's bitterly divided political spectrum when it comes to condemning the United Nations Secretary-General. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former right-wing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, and centrist Opposition Leader Yair Lapid are fierce domestic rivals—with Bennett and Lapid even building a joint political alliance specifically to oust Netanyahu—they, alongside major global Jewish organizations, stand entirely united in their fierce criticism of Guterres's leadership.

The Jewish world has high hopes for the future. Jewish economist and Costa Rican diplomat Rebeca Grynspan is currently a front-runner in the race to succeed António Guterres as the next UN Secretary-General. If elected, Grynspan—the daughter of Polish Jewish refugees who fled Europe before the Holocaust—would make history as both the first woman and the first Jewish person to lead the United Nations.

While Grynspan's potential historic appointment has sparked considerable pride and optimism, Jewish advocacy groups and Israeli officials maintain a cautious stance. Their focus is less on a candidate's personal identity and more on a concrete commitment to fighting institutional bias.