In a post on his X account on Friday night, Baqaei wrote, “’Neutrality in times of war is not indifference’. True! But war and GENOCIDE are inherently different; 'neutrality in times of war' cannot be applied in times of an undisguised genocide that has been raging on for the past 2 years in the open.”
“Genuine humanitarianism calls for moral courage to explicitly abhor atrocity crimes and demand accountability for the criminals,” he added.
The Iranian official’s remarks came in reference to a post by Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, who had emphasized that while neutrality is vital for humanitarian organizations in times of war, it becomes distorted when applied to a decades-old apartheid regime committing genocide and other crimes.
Albanese warned that framing Palestinians merely as “one side” under such circumstances risks what she called “cross-eyed humanitarianism.”