New York, September 29th, 2025 – The demonstrative walkout during the speech of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday morning at the UN is in breach of the spirit and the letter of the UN Charter and it risks undermining the rule of law based international system, says ECI Founding Director Tomas Sandell who was personally invited by the Israeli government to the UN headquarters to listen to the speech. When the Prime Minister started his speech, cheered on by the invited Israeli guests and other friends, diplomats from some 77 UN member states demonstratively stood up and walked out of the Assembly Hall or where otherwise absent. Whereas the Deputy Chair of the UN General Assembly Hall repeatedly called for silence from the audience, he did nothing to stop the walkout. A majority of the countries who walked out represented the Islamic block or the Global South but the group also included EU member states Spain, Ireland and Slovenia.
“The ultimate responsibility for this breach of the UN code of conduct and the complete disrespect of the one and only Jewish state in the world lies with the Chairman of the 80th session of the UN General Assembly, the former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock”, Sandell said.
“This is a major diplomatic debacle of Baerbock, who as a German citizen has a historic responsibility to keep in mind that the United Nations was built on the ashes of the Holocaust, out of which also the Jewish state was reborn. The moment when UN member states refuse to listen to each other and instead walk out, the spirit of the UN has disappeared”, he said.
The speech of Prime Minister Netanyahu where he read out the names of all the remaining hostages in Gaza, was a clear highlight of the week. In the opening day of the General Debate on Tuesday 23 September US President Donald Trump criticized the world organisation for its failure to deliver peace and stability in the world but also for its massive corruption. While several Western countries took the opportunity to announce their recognition of a Palestinian state during the general debate, the President of the UN member state with the largest Muslim population in the world, Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia, gave a passionate speech where he called upon the nations to recognise, respect and guarantee the security and safety of Israel.
The UN bias against Israel is well documented. At the end of his tenure as UN Secretary-General in 2016 Ban Ki-moon acknowledged that the organisation has disproportionate volume of resolutions against Israel, which he believed had foiled the ability of the UN to fulfil its role effectively. The same year Ban Ki-moon adopted a resolution to recognize the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur as a UN holiday. However, despite the attempts to prevent UN meetings on the Jewish High Holidays, the UN conference to push for Palestinian statehood took place on the eve of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.
The European Coalition for Israel was represented in New York, apart from Founding Director Tomas Sandell, also by Board chairman Peter Fagerholm, board member Nick Try and Kim Corden.
