Self-defense with humanity, says UN deputy chief

The under-secretary-general of the United Nations and high representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, Miguel Angel Moratinos, was in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki last week representing UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the award ceremony for the Empress Theophano Prize, which this year went to the international organization.

In his four-decade-long political and diplomatic career, Moratinos has, among other posts, served as foreign minister of his native Spain (2004-2010), ambassador to Israel (1996) and special representative for the European Union in the Middle East Peace Process (1996-2003). When this exclusive interview with Kathimerini was agreed, we were asked not to pose any questions about the ongoing war in the Middle East. But Kathimerini did ask, and Moratinos answered.

“What is going on in Gaza, in Israel today, is an existential conflict. It is two nations, two peoples, two narratives fighting for their own existence,” the United Nations official said when we sat down with him. “If they don’t understand that, the Palestinians or the Israelis, there will not be peace. There will be no possibility for them to maintain their future existence.”

The international community’s role, he says, is to help them return to the negotiating table and reach a two-state solution. “It’s the only way that we will have the recognition of both sides, living in peace and security in guaranteed borders and secure borders. The sooner we go to that solution, the better for everybody,” he stresses.

According to Moratinos, the time is not yet ripe for such a breakthrough, though, because “we are in the reaction against Hamas’ horrible attack on civilians and the Israeli people, which, of course, we condemn.” He actually believes that we are still at the “beginning of the response from Israel,” and still have to see “what the consequences will be from that,” adding that “everybody has the right to self-defense” but must also “abide by humanitarian law.”

Moratinos makes a point of stressing his opposition to any form of war. He has spent 40 years of his life in politics and diplomacy, has seen a lot of conflict, wars and crises, and still cannot “accept that in the 21st century, when human beings have been able to develop extraordinary discoveries in medicine, in science and in new technologies, we are unable to really control violence, to solve problems in a peaceful manner, that we have to use the military,” he says.

“I think human beings should at this stage be sufficiently human, intelligent and wise to avoid war,” he notes, saying that it is wrong to refer to the “art of war” because there is nothing beautiful about war, just “nihilism and darkness.”

For the experienced diplomat, the events in Gaza today were “inevitable.” “Those of us who spent many years working on this dossier told the main actors, the West mainly, that the situation was not good. But there was this kind of ‘bubble’ of satisfaction that everything was moving in the right direction. We knew the situation was not good. Some of us alerted that they had to move forward. But people got tired, they thought that everything was under control. ‘From time to time, you have to cut the grass,’ they’d say, meaning that a certain order had to be maintained in Gaza.”

Things were obviously not under control, though. “During the last five, 10 years, there has been a lack of real engagement to solve the problem. It was not a top priority in the agenda. And so people thought that everything was solved and it was not solved. And that blew up with this terrible attack by Hamas,” Moratinos notes.

“Now people say, ‘What are we going to do?’ Well, it could have been done in a different manner, but there was no political will. We are paying the consequences of this lack of engagement of the international community to solve this issue. That is my personal point of view,” he says.

Diplomacy, says Moratinos, was not invented to ensure coexistence among friends but to solve problems among enemies or adversaries through peaceful means, and this is what the international community should be investing in, thinking about the way forward after Israel’s operation ends. But will the operation end if the hostages are not returned? “Everybody is very much concerned. Everybody’s working for the right of the people to go back to their houses, everybody’s calling on Hamas to free the hostages with no condition. I think that should be our main concern, to get these civilian people back to their families,” he tells Kathimerini.

‘What is going on in Gaza, in Israel today, is an existential conflict. It is two nations, two peoples, two narratives fighting for their own existence’

Moratinos, who is responsible for monitoring anti-Semitic sentiment in the UN, notes a spike in such incidents since the war began and says that “we have to back zero tolerance for anti-Semitic attacks.” There has also been a rise of Islamophobia, he says, stressing that “we have to be extremely active on this issue… to denounce all these acts of hate and discrimination, all these attacks and violations of holy sites or holy places.”

Moratinos indicates that it is essential to send the message to the warring sides that “they have to live together. They have to respect each other.” Many believe that this is not the time for that, but the UN official disagrees. “It’s absolutely urgent and needed to maintain this continuous call for respect and mutual acceptance,” he says.

Asked about the United Nations’ relevance in a world caught in the turmoil of war once more, Moratinos points to a question that he asked himself when he was foreign minister of Spain: Is it better to have power or influence? “When you have power, you can impose yourself. But what are the achievements of the powerful countries today? What have they succeeded in? For me, it’s not important to have power. It’s important to have influence in order to make the right decision,” he says. The UN, he notes, has no military, or money or power, “but they can have the moral conscience of the world.” “They’re the ones who can really determine what needs to be done, what is the best formula to solve the problem.”

We live in a globalized and interconnected world where what happens in one country affects the others, he notes, adding that this also means that we have “global citizens” mobilizing on global issues. “Powerful countries impose their say, but to a degree. Who rules the world? The people. The people are the government, the private sector, the company, the activist, the media – all that rules the world. And who is the catalyst to really get all these elements together so they move in the right direction? Organizations like the UN that can really incorporate everything in their body and provide the best offer for one humanity,” says Moratinos.

As far as the UN goes, the international organization is facing four key challenges.

The first is averting war and resolving conflicts through peaceful means. “We have to change the Security Council. It is the organ that was supposed to really guarantee peace, but with five permanent members with veto power it doesn’t work,” he indicates.

Saving the planet by tackling climate change is the second one. “If we don’t save ourselves, we have to save humanity,” he says, adding that the third challenge is to develop a policy strengthening diversity. “We have to really respect each other, respect each civilization, respect each culture to put diversity in a positive manner. Diversity is a richness, it’s not a threat,” he stresses.

Last but not least, says Moratinos, is the challenge of saving Homo sapiens. “Artificial intelligence is coming along at a very high speed… If we continue as we are doing today, artificial intelligence will overtake us as human super intelligence.” AI, he adds, can contribute in a positive way in fields like medicine and science, but we also need to safeguard our own survival. “Artificial intelligence is based on what we know, but human intelligence is the one that has produced the creativity, produced what we know, because of curiosity for what we don’t know,” he says.

It is also important, he says, to reinforce the multilateral system instead of going back to a traditional balance of power where two countries make all the decisions for everyone else. The two main ones are the United States and China, but there is also Russia, the rest of the BRICS and the countries of Europe. “We live in a divided, fragmented world. That was not the case five or six years ago,” he says. However, since the war in Ukraine began and now with the impact of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the world has become split into three: the global north, the global south and the countries in between “that are trying to find their own way forward, their own future.” “So let’s try to overcome this division, this fragmentation, and try to work collectively.”

With regard to the war in Ukraine, Moratinos is unequivocal that by violating Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the Russian Federation violated the UN Charter. “They triggered a reaction, the normal reaction. But at the same time, what we see is a kind of status quo, an impasse, and we’re missing the wish for a political and diplomatic solution to the conflict.”

“It’s missing because nobody has really tried. They were very close to an agreement a month after the conflict started, in March 2022, but the main actors at that time decided that it was not the time,” he says.

If the two sides want to have a future, he adds “they have to make peace, because Russia is not going to disappear. Like the Palestinians, they’re not going to disappear. So they have to make a compromise.”

Moratinos also bemoans the fact that war is harming our ability to deal with the biggest crisis the world faces, which is climate change, but also diverting funds away from combating poverty and hunger to increasing security and strengthening militaries.

Nevertheless, he is optimistic and believes in the younger generations, telling them: “The future is not written. It’s up to you. You are the one who will create history – you have to really determine what you want.”

“Human beings have always been successful in their battles, either political, economic, social or cultural,” he says, expressing the conviction that pessimism accomplishes nothing. Quoting Albert Camus during his banquet speech after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957, Moratinos notes: “Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists of preventing the world from destroying itself.” “That is the message we need to convey to the younger generations,” he says.