Antonio Guterres. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reassured Jewish community leaders on Sunday that he would oppose any anti-Israel bias at the world body.

“I consider that the state of Israel needs to be treated as any other state,” Guterres said at the World Jewish Congress offices in New York.

“I have already had the opportunity to show that I’m ready to abide by that principle, even when that forces me to take some decisions that create some uncomfortable situations,” he added, referring to an incident in March in which he forced the retraction of a controversial UN report that accused Israel of implementing “an apartheid regime.”

In addition to clarifying that his opposition to anti-Israel bias does not entail always being “in agreement with all the decisions” made by the Israeli government, Guterres assured that he would be “in the frontline” of the fight against global antisemitism and to eradicate the phenomenon “from the face of the Earth.”

In March, Guterres for the second time made public his recognition of Judaism’s historic ties to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.