Erdoğan blasts UN over US veto of Gaza ceasefire resolution

ISTANBUL

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has denounced the U.N. Security Council after the United States vetoed a ceasefire resolution for Gaza, describing the international body as the "Israel protection council."

Erdoğan used a speech on human rights on Dec. 9 to accuse the West of “barbarism” for its stance on the Israel-Hamas war and what he alleged was its toleration of Islamophobia.

“Israel has carried out atrocities and massacres that will shame the whole of humanity,” Erdoğan told a packed hall in Istanbul the day before the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“All the values relating to humanity are being murdered in Gaza. In the face of such brutality, international institutions and human rights organizations are not taking any concrete steps to prevent such violations," the president said.

The human rights declaration, proclaimed by the U.N. General Assembly in Paris on Dec. 10, 1948, enshrines a standard for human rights and freedoms for all people.

"Since Oct. 7, the security council has become an Israel protection and defense council," Erdoğan said, arguing it is essential for it to be reformed.

The United States on Dec. 8 vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the intense fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Washington thus dashed a growing clamor for a halt to fighting that had been led by U.N. chief Antonio Guterres and Arab nations.

"Is this justice?" asked Erdoğan, adding that "the world is bigger than five," a reference to the five veto-wielding nations in the U.N. Security Council. "Another world is possible, but without America."

The U.N. resolution for a ceasefire was submitted more than two months after the start of the war in Gaza triggered by Hamas' attack on Israeli soil on Oct. 7, which, according to the Israeli authorities, killed 1,200 people.

Since then, Hamas has put the death toll in Gaza at 17,490, mostly women and children.

"The United States stands by Israel with its money and military equipment. Hey, America! How much are you going to pay for that?" Erdoğan said.

The president defined Islamophobia and xenophobia, which he said “engulf Western societies like poison ivy,” as the greatest threats to human rights.

He told the audience that the only value “the West holds on to is its barbarism. We have seen this example of the West’s barbarism in all those unfortunate events that they either supported or perpetrated.”

Erdoğan cited the 2019 attack on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which a gunman killed 51 people, as an Islamophobic attack that was “legitimized” and “even encouraged” by the West.

“According to their understanding, non-Westerners don’t have the right to enjoy those universal human rights… they overlook Islamophobic attacks and they show the twisted perception and mentality of the West,” he said.