What to know from the UN: Biden stops by, Gaza takes the spotlight, a dour world outlook prevails

[September 25, 2024]  By JENNIFER PELTZ and EDITH M. LEDERER

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The world's leaders gathered in New York for the beginning of their annual meeting at the U.N. General Assembly. Let’s just say the vibe was pretty grim.

Leader after leader spoke of the wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, climate problems, exclusion from U.N. decision making, poor nations struggling to feed their populations. “I cannot recall a time of greater peril than this,” said KING ABDULLAH II of Jordan.

A few speakers, including U.S. President JOE BIDEN, tried to push a message of hope for the future. "We are stronger than we think. We are stronger together than alone," Biden said. "And what the people call impossible is just an illusion.”

But the U.S. was the target of much veiled criticism for acting unilaterally on the response to the Gaza war: “Impunity” was the word of the day.

Here’s your daily guide to what’s going on at the United Nations this week, day by day:

From the podium

WAR IN GAZA: Many delegates focused their speeches on the war in Gaza. Jordan’s Abdullah said Israel’s campaigns are undermining a key part of the international system protecting human rights. He listed as examples: the bombing of U.N. shelters and schools; inability for U.N. workers to assist; and humanitarian workers being subsumed by the conflict. As for the idea of Palestinians finding new homes in Jordan, he said, forced displacement is a war crime and “that will never happen.”

Turkish President RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN called the U.N. a “dysfunctional, unwieldy and inert structure,” and told delegates that “international peace and security are too important to be left to the arbitrariness of the privileged five” permanent members of the Security Council. He called for the Security Council to impose sanctions on Israel and said the general assembly should recommend the use of force to achieve an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, the exchange of prisoners, and the unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid.

Brazilian President LUIZ INÁCIO LULA DASILVA said: “The right to self defense became a right for vengeance, which prevents a deal for the release of hostages and delays a ceasefire.”

Biden repeated his calls for a cease-fire and the return of hostages: “Full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest."

IRAN: In his first speech at the U.N. General Assembly’s annual gathering of world leaders, President MASOUD PEZESHKIAN struck a somewhat more measured tone than his predecessors often have in recent years. “I aim to lay a strong foundation for my country’s entry into a new era, positioning it to play an effective and constructive role in the evolving global order,” said Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon who ran as a reformer. He took office in July.

LGBTQ+ RIGHTS: Erdogan criticized the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics in July, which featured drag queens and was widely misinterpreted as a representation of Christ’s last supper with his disciplines. He called it a “disgrace” that “revealed the dimensions of the threat we face as humanity.” Erdogan, whose government has clamped down on LGBTQ+ events in recent years, added: “Anyone who raises a voice against this destruction project and shows the slightest reaction is silenced and becomes the target of lynching campaigns," he said. “Turkey is determined to break this siege and resist this climate of fear at all cost.”

On the sidelines

Israel’s envoy to the U.N. says his country doesn’t want to send troops into Lebanon but will do “whatever necessary” to halt the Hezbollah rocket fire that has driven tens of thousands of Israelis from their country’s north. “We prefer a diplomatic solution. But if it’s not working, we are using other methods to show the other side that we mean business,” said Ambassador DANNY DANON.

White House Principal Deputy National Security Adviser JON FINER said that Biden administration officials were in talks with allies to help find an off-ramp to the escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah. “We’re working on that it real time right here in New York and in capitals around the world,” Finer said in an appearance at an event hosted by the news site Axios. He sidestepped questions about whether the fighting has already become the all-out war that the U.S. had been pressing Israel to avoid with Lebanon as it continues its nearly year-long conflict in Gaza. But he underscored that a “big war, a wider war” is neither in Israel or Lebanon’s interest.

The United Nations flag is flown before the start of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, at the UN headquarters. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Climate moment

In the buildup to introducing Biden for a climate speech in New York, actress and activist JANE FONDA changed some words, some accidentally, some not so to call attention to climate change. In talking about Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, Fonda slipped and started to called it the “Inflammation” Reduction Act and then corrected it, saying inflammation actually works too, given global temperatures. Then in discussing fossil fuels that cause climate change, Fonda was blunt and profane: “Forget natural gas, but the f—-ing fossil gas. There’s nothing natural about it, and it’s terrible for people and the environment.”

Voices you might have missed

Several leaders from Africa complained again this year about the lack of permanent representation on the U.N. Security Council. “Africa and its 1.4 billion people remain excluded from its key decision-making structures,” said CYRIL RAMAPHOSA, the president of South Africa. “The U.N. Security Council must be reformed as a matter of urgency. It must become more inclusive so that the voices of all nations are heard and considered.”

El Salvador President NAYIB BUKELE boasted of his country’s security turnaround, moving the tiny Central American nation from one of the world’s most dangerous countries to one of its safest. Bukele was reelected by a landslide to an unprecedented second term in February largely on his security record of crippling the country’s once-powerful street gangs. The media-savvy millennial leader has locked up more than 81,000 people under a state of emergency now in place for more than 2 ½ years that suspends some fundamental rights. “Some say that we have jailed thousands, but the reality is that we have freed millions,” Bukele said. “Now it’s the good (people) who live free, without fear, with their freedoms and human rights totally respected.”

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"Security is not only about having strong armies and weapons of mass destruction. True security will only be achieved with trust, equality and prosperity for all peoples."

— SADYR ZHAPAROV, president of Kyrgyzstan

Something you probably don't know

Of all the United Nations' 193 countries, Brazil had the first word at the General Assembly’s big annual debate Tuesday — as it has since the early days of the U.N. Why? Because back then, Brazil volunteered to speak first when no other nation would. A tradition was born. The United States typically goes second because it hosts the U.N. headquarters in New York. Everyone else’s speaking slot is determined by multiple variables, including how high-level the speaker is (a head of state versus a cabinet member, for instance), countries’ own preferences and geographic balance.

One notable number

Number of times U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the word “impunity” in his opening speech Tuesday: 5

Quotable

“My fellow leaders, let us never forget some things are more important than staying in power. It’s your people that matter the most. Never forget, we are here to serve the people, not the other way around.”

— Biden, who won applause when he used his decision not to run for re-election as fuel for calling all leaders -- particularly autocrats in the room -- to focus on democracy ahead of personal power
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“Not only children are dying in Gaza; the United Nations system is also dying, the truth is dying, the values that the West claims to defend are dying, the hopes of humanity to live in a fairer world are dying one by one."

—Erdogan, speaking about the nations he says blindly support Israel, at the cost of tens of thousands of Palestinian lives.

Up next

Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, the leader of a nation at war, will address the General Assembly on Wednesday. Also Wednesday, the Security Council will hold a meeting about the situation in Lebanon.
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AP writers Seth Borenstein, Michael Weissenstein, Marcos Alemán, Matthew Weis and Matthew Lee contributed.

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