Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Sunday sharply questioned India’s decision to abstain from signing a letter condemning Israel’s move to ban United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres from Israeli territory.
Chidambaram termed India’s stance as “inexplicable,” and contrary to those of its BRICS partners, Brazil and South Africa, as well as much of the Global South. “India broke ranks with Brazil and South Africa, its partners in BRICS. India also broke ranks with many countries of South Asia, West Asia and Africa with whom it has friendly and cordial relationship,” Chidambaram wrote on X.
Stressing the impartiality of the UN chief’s office, Chidambaram said, “The UN Secretary General is a non-partisan office. The UN is the only international forum to ventilate political differences. Israel was completely wrong in barring the UN Secretary General from entering Israel.”
The Congress MP argued that India should have been among the first to sign the letter, which was promoted by Chile and supported by 104 countries, including European and African nations. It was the latest in a series of abstentions by India on resolutions that are critical of Israel.
The letter condemned Israel’s decision, asserting that such actions undermine the UN’s capacity to mediate conflicts and provide humanitarian assistance.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz had justified the decision to declare Guterres as ‘persona non grata’ by citing his failure to “unequivocally condemn” Iran’s recent missile attack on Israel. Katz also condemned the UN chief for not denouncing atrocities committed by Hamas when it attacked Israel on October 7.
“Anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel, as almost every country in the world has done, does not deserve to step on Israeli soil,” he said in a post on X. Katz further accused Guterres of supporting “terrorists, rapists, and murderers from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and now Iran—the mothership of global terror.”
According to the Jerusalem Post, the ban on Guterres is part of a broader Israeli critique of the UN, which it claims is dominated by an “anti-Israel” bloc of Arab and Islamic countries, and affiliated organisations like UNRWA, which it alleges are linked to Hamas.
At the UN General Assembly in September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the UN as an “anti-Semitic swamp” following a series of UN resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and condemning Israel’s military operations.