US President Donald Trump has criticised the decision by Australia and other allies to recognise the state of Palestine, while hitting out at the United Nations itself in his first speech to the global body in five years.
He was speaking a day after Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese joined leaders from France, the UK, Belgium and several other countries in formally announcing or confirming their support for a Palestinian state in a move aimed at galvanising support for a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict.
Without naming the individual countries, Trump accused them of rewarding Hamas for the deadly October 7 attacks.
He was speaking a day after Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese joined leaders from France, the UK, Belgium and several other countries in formally announcing or confirming their support for a Palestinian state in a move aimed at galvanising support for a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict.
Without naming the individual countries, Trump accused them of rewarding Hamas for the deadly October 7 attacks.
“As if to encourage continued conflict, some of this body is seeking to unilaterally recognise a Palestinian state, the rewards would be too great for Hamas terrorists for their atrocities,” Trump said.
“This would be a reward for these horrible atrocities, including October 7, even while they refused to release the hostages or accept a ceasefire.”
A day earlier, Albanese told the UN that formal recognition of a Palestinian state would break a “cycle of violence” and offer the people “real hope for a place they can call home”.
In his first return to the United Nations General Assembly since 2020, Trump repeatedly criticised the institution itself in an extraordinary almost hour-long address on Tuesday morning (early Wednesday AEST).
Trump claimed credit for ending a series of wars while lashing the UN for what he described as a lack of action, while criticising everything from a broken teleprompter and a stalled escalator to the quality of the flooring in the New York headquarters.
“The UN has such tremendous potential. I’ve always said it, it has such tremendous, tremendous potential but it’s not even coming close to living up to that potential,” he said.
“For the most part, at least for now, all they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up.
“It’s empty words, and empty words don’t solve war. The only thing that solves war and wars is action.”
At various points, Trump took aim at immigration, renewable energy, former US president Joe Biden and many other topics familiar to anyone who has watched one of his rallies.
But he also had some relatively targeted complaints, such as the choice of flooring in a multimillion-dollar renovation of the New York UN headquarters and a shot at London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who he called “a terrible, terrible mayor”.
The US leader was not expected to address any possible meeting with Albanese, whose hopes of a sitdown with the billionaire were dealt another blow yesterday when White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt listed a number of countries whose leaders her boss would be meeting, without mentioning Australia.
But Trump did add another surprise country to that list, confirming that he’d run into notably left-wing Brazilian President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva on the way to the stage, hugged and set up a meeting for next week.
“We had, at least for about 39 seconds, we had excellent chemistry,” Trump said.
When asked to confirm if he had set an in-person meeting, Albanese said “wait and see”.
Trump also announced, without giving details, a US plan to use an artificial intelligence-driven verification system to enforce global biological weapons conventions.
UN chief warns world leaders of ‘an age of reckless disruption and relentless human suffering’
Before Trump took the stage, the United Nations chief challenged world leaders to choose a future where the rule of law triumphs over raw power and where nations come together rather than scramble for self-interests.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the UN’s founders faced the same questions 80 years ago, but he told today’s world leaders at the opening of their annual gathering at the General Assembly that the choice of peace or war, law or lawlessness, cooperation or conflict, is “more urgent, more intertwined, more unforgiving”.
“We have entered in an age of reckless disruption and relentless human suffering,” he said in his annual “state of the World” speech.
“The pillars of peace and progress are buckling under the weight of impunity, inequality and indifference.”
Guterres said the leaders’ first obligation is to choose peace, and without naming any countries, he urged all parties – including those in the Assembly chamber – to stop supporting Sudan’s warring parties.
He also didn’t name Israel but used his strongest words against its actions in Gaza, saying the scale of death and destruction are the worst in his nearly nine years as secretary-general, and that “nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people”.
While Guterres has repeatedly said only a court can determine whether Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, he referred to the case South Africa brought to the UN’s highest court under the genocide convention by name – and stressed its legally binding provisional measures, first and foremost to protect Palestinian civilians.
Israel denies all accusations of genocide and claims its actions in Gaza are justified in self-defence. Hamas militants killed some 1200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 in the October 7, 2023, attack.
Israel has killed more than 65,100 people in Gaza in response, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, and displaced about 90% of the population, causing a catastrophic humanitarian crisis and what experts have classified as famine.
– reported with Associated Press.