António Guterres is missing a good opportunity to keep quiet. He wrote a letter to the UN Security Council President, distributed to all of the Security Council members, a letter that is not really responsible behavior.

The worst part of his letter is his demand for a ceasefire at all cost. He knows full will the meaning of that phrase in the present context—all cost includes the destruction of Israel as a polity, as a society, as a people. Guterres doesn’t care.

Underneath that, he bleats about “reportedly” 15,000 Gazans have been killed in this war, and adds his “reportedly” claim of 40% of those 15,000 being children. Undoubtedly, several thousand Gazans, including children, have been killed. But he chooses not to cite credible sources for those figures, he ignores who has the responsibility for those deaths, and he ignores the inalienable right of the Israelis to defend themselves, to defend their very existence.

Guterres also bleated about hospitals become battle zones and the decreasing supplies of hospital and Gazan necessities.

Guterres has chosen to ignore where the responsibility for this disaster lies. Hamas has repeatedly stated that its goal is the extermination of Israel, and at least one of its leaders has promised repeated October 7s until the goal is achieved—no matter how many Gazans die in the effort.

Guterres has chosen to ignore the basic fact that the vast majority of Gazan casualties—of whatever number—are the direct result of Hamas’ use of Gazans as human shields and Hamas’ use of Gazan residential apartment buildings, schools, those hospitals about which Guterres pretends to worry as rocket launch sites, weapons and ammunition storage sites, and command centers.

Guterres has chosen to ignore that it was Hamas that chose to ignite this war, and that it is Hamas that is creating the humanitarian disaster about which he pretends to care so much with its refusal to let Gazans evacuate combat zones—zones which the Israeli government and the IDF are constantly at pains to announce before hand, at great risk to their own soldiers and at great risk of letting terrorists leave the combat zone along with Gazans.

Guterres’ performance is not well brought-up behavior.