World
Javier Milei accuses the United Nations of hypocrisy on Israel
The Argentinian president attacked the international body as a ‘multi-tentacled Leviathan’
September 27, 2024 13:37
The Argentinian president attacked the international body as a ‘multi-tentacled Leviathan’
September 27, 2024 13:37Argentina’s libertarian president attacked the United Nations a “multi-tentacled Leviathan” with a hypocritical position on Israel in a speech to the international body’s general assembly.
Javier Milei, who has studied Judaism and defended Benjamin Netanyahu in the face of growing global isolation, criticised the UN’s opposition to Jerusalem.
"In this same house that purports to defend human rights, we have also included bloody dictatorships in the Human Rights Council, including Cuba and Venezuela, without reproach," he said.
"In this same house, which purports to defend the rights of women, we've allowed on the [Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women] Committee countries that punish their women just for showing their skin.
"And this same house has voted against the state of Israel, which is the only country in the Middle East to defend liberal democracy."
Milei also condemned the UN’s “Pact for the Future” programme.
The 42-page document includes plans to boost the empowerment of women, regulate technology such as artificial intelligence and address climate change.
“Argentina will not back any policy that implies the restriction of individual freedoms or trade, nor the violation of the natural rights of individuals,” Milei said.
“We invite all nations of the free world to join us, not only in opposing this pact, but in the creation of a new agenda for this noble institution: the freedom agenda.”
The UN is becoming, he claimed, a “multi-tentacled Leviathan that seeks to decide what each nation state should do and how the citizens of the world should live.”
Milei, a former professor of macroeconomics, was elected to lead Argentina in December of last year.
While raised Catholic, he has visited the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s grave, prayed at the Western Wall, and studies the Torah daily.
“I am thinking about converting to Judaism and I aspire to become the first Jewish president in Argentine history,” he told an Argentinian radio station last year.
The only thing giving him pause, he added, was that observing Shabbat might intefere with his presidential duties.
Speaking to La Nacion, he added: “I don’t go to church. I go to synagogue. I don’t follow a priest. I follow my rabbi. I learn Torah.
"I’m known internationally as a friend of Israel. And as someone who learns Torah, I’m almost Jewish. I’m just missing the ‘blood covenant.'”
Throughout Israel’s war in Gaza, Milei has proved a firm international defender of the IDF’s conduct.
"The Argentine Republic recognises the right of nation-states to defend themselves, and emphatically supports the State of Israel in the defence of its sovereignty, especially against regimes that promote terror and seek the destruction of Western civilisation,” his office said in a statement earlier this year.
Some of Argentina’s Jewish community have raised concerns over Milei’s pronouncements, however.
As he campaigned for the presidency, 4,000 Jewish Argentines signed a petition criticising his "political use of Judaism".
Diana Malamud, whose husband was killed in a 1994 Hezbollah terror attack against a Jewish community centre, told AP: “Milei has a messianic mind, and this is quite dangerous. His policies can not only stoke conflicts at the international level ... but also generate antsemitism within our country.”