(JNS) Israel’s Foreign Ministry has condemned United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for reappointing Volker Turk, his former policy chief, for a second term as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Thursday.
Describing the move as “unprecedented and highly controversial,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it ties “the hands of his successor” and degrades the UN’s “rules-based order.”
“By extending the mandate of an OHCHR that erased the atrocities of Oct. 7, misused funds, and betrayed UN neutrality in favor of corrupt political radicalism, Guterres cements, for years to come, the deeply politicized legacy of his tenure,” the Ministry posted to X on July 24.
UNSG Guterres’s infamous legacy:
On the verge of his departure, in an unprecedented and highly controversial move, UN Secretary-General @antonioguterres granted @volker_turk, his former Policy Chief, an unprecedented second full term as High Commissioner for Human Rights – tying…
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) July 24, 2026
Guterres, who is nearing the end of his 10-year term, nominated Turk, an Austrian attorney and UN careerist, without public discussion. The UN General Assembly voted 144-10 with 13 abstentions in favor of his reappointment on Friday.
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a human rights NGO, told JNS: “The UN’s rubber-stamp renewal of Volker Turk for an unprecedented second four-year term was a quiet, last-minute maneuver by Secretary-General Guterres, pushed through with minimal scrutiny, no open call for candidates, and no public debate.”
“No independent human rights figures endorsed him; on the contrary. That China and so many other human rights abusers backed the extension is the clearest verdict on his record: he never spoke out with the courage the job demands,” he said.
Turk earned the ire of Israel for adopting wholesale the libels spread against it during the Gaza war.
In a Sept. 8, 2025, address to the UN Human Rights Council, he condemned “Israel’s mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza”; its hindering of aid and “the ensuing starvation of civilians”; “its killing of journalists, UN staff and NGO workers;” and “its commission of war crime upon war crime.”
Just over a week later, on Sept. 16, 2025, Turk condemned Israel’s airstrike against a Hamas compound in Doha as “a shocking breach of international law, an assault on regional peace and stability, and a blow against the integrity of mediation and negotiating processes around the world.”
He then demanded that UN member states stop the flow of arms to Israel “that risk violating the laws of war.”
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk in Geneva. His reappointment for a second term has drawn sharp criticism in Israel. Photo: EPA/Martial Trezzini.
Turk’s first four-year term was to expire on Oct. 11. He will be the first in the position to serve two full terms since the post was created in 1993, the Associated Press reported.
The United States also opposed Turk’s reappointment.
“Make no mistake, if this assembly tolerates procedural overreach, backroom deals and the misuse of UN posts, there will be consequences,” US deputy ambassador to the UN Jeff Bartos warned before the vote, AP reported.
“The United States will immediately reassess our engagement, participation and funding,” he said.
Explaining America’s opposition, Neuer said, “According to a UN Watch study of his first two years, Turk condemned the United States more often than China, North Korea, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Qatar combined.
“He stayed completely silent on gross abuses by Cuba, North Korea, Algeria, Eritrea, Mauritania, Lebanon and Qatar, never once mentioned the mass imprisonment of more than a million Uyghurs, and issued dozens of statements against Israel while soft-pedaling or ignoring the world’s worst dictatorships.
“A high commissioner who mutes his voice to please the powerful has already failed the victims he was appointed to defend,” Neuer said.
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