We live in a world of quick headlines and even quicker slogans.

“Take back control.”

“My country first.”

“Us against them.”

Slogans that paint the world in black and white.

Slogans that want to make us believe things are very simple.

That there is only one side that matters.

“Us against them”.

I come from a country where this logic – “us against them” – was taken to the worst extremes that humankind has ever seen.

A murderous world war that killed millions.

And the worst possible crime against humanity. The Shoah, the genocide of 6 million Jews. Dehumanised, murdered just for being Jews. Murdered because of a Nazi ideology that would only accept the humanity of those they defined as Germans.

After World War Two, this institution here in New York was founded on the understanding that “us against them” leads to disaster.

That the world needs a countermodel: our UN charter.

A countermodel to a world in which we only recognise our own humanity, but not that of others.

A countermodel that instead grants every country in the world the right to determine its own destiny.

That casts a positive vision of our shared future.

A vision of an international order that is based on rules, on the equality of every state and every human being.

Of cooperation instead of divisive nationalism.

Of a humanity that is indivisible.

And these are not simple slogans.

These are the principles we try to live up to every day.

But living up to them is anything but simple.

It demands hard work, maybe more than ever before.

It demands empathy and solidarity, the opposite of “my country first”.

It demands the will to put ourselves in the shoes of others.

It demands, especially in times of crisis, the strength to recognise the pain of others, even if our own pain seems unbearable.

And to find common ground despite all that divides us.

It also means that we have to face the dilemma that the values of the Charter can at times appear contradictory. Such as the inherent right to self-defence and the responsibility to protect civilians when civilians are misused as human shields.

Resolving this is harder than simply exclaiming:

“either – or”,

“us against them”.

Especially in this era of social media, where simple TikTok truths seem to blur out all complexity and nuance, sometimes even facts.

We can see that with regard to the war in the Middle East.

In its ruthless attack of 7 October last year, Hamas maimed and killed some 1200 men, women and children.

To this day, the terrorists are holding more than 100 men, women and children hostage. Including German citizens, including children.

At the same time, in Gaza, hungry, traumatised children are wandering the ruins of what used to be their homes, desperately searching for their parents under the rubble.

When we’re seeing all this with hearts on fire, I guess it’s only human that sometimes we are tempted to fall for simple slogans, to only see one side.

Each of us is looking at this conflict from our own perspective and history. We need to respect that. But we must not stop there.

Instead, we need to ask ourselves: “What if this was me? If these were my children?”

“In a competition of pain, there can be no winners.”

This is how one of the hostage’s families put it. Humanity is universal. If in the darkest hour of her life, the mother of a murdered hostage finds the strength to see both sides, then we, the leaders of the countries around the world, who have the privilege to speak in this hall, should be capable of doing the same.

Not to fall for quick slogans, but to rally around humanity in order to overcome this vicious circle of hate.

Universal humanity means that the rights of Israelis and Palestinians do not cancel each other out.

And this is why my country stands by its commitment to the security of the State of Israel. And why, at the same time, we are working every day to end the hell for the children of Gaza.

Because lasting security for Israelis will only be possible if there is lasting security for Palestinians. And the opposite is also true: lasting security for Palestinians will only be possible if there is lasting security for Israelis.

This is why we will not rest until the hostages are home.

This is why we are working so hard for a ceasefire. For the Biden plan, which was endorsed by the Security Council.

And why at the same time, together with our partners, we are working hard to get more humanitarian aid into Gaza. Germany alone has provided more than €360 million for humanitarian aid for Gaza since last October.

This is why I've been in the region 11 times since October.

This is also why yesterday we came together with a group of countries to call for an immediate 21-day ceasefire along the Blue Line. Because a broader regional escalation would not create lasting security for anyone.

And frustrating, to be frank, as the lack of progress sometimes is, we are not giving up on seeking a political vision to enable Israelis and Palestinians to live peacefully, side by side, in two states.

For me, resignation is simply not an option. Because that would mean that the playbook of terrorism and extremism prevails.

We need to recognise each other's pain, each other's interests, and yes, also listen to each other's grievances if we want to move forward.

And if we do so, we might sometimes hear things we don't want to hear – hear about our own shortcomings.

I remember how two and a half years ago I called many colleagues here in this room and around the world to ask for your support in standing up against Russia's imperial war in Ukraine.

And how one of my colleagues said, “But where were you when we needed you?” “When we were attacked by the Houthis?” And others said, “You didn't stand with us in our anti-colonial struggle!”

I admit, I paused for thought. Because they had a point.

And I firmly believe: critical self-reflection of what we or generations before us in our countries have done wrong is actually to our benefit.

Because the ability to learn from past mistakes makes societies stronger.

It is the only way to build a better future.

That is why in my country, Germany, we have started to address our colonial past more thoroughly. The restitution of artifacts is a crucial element here.

That is also why we are in the midst of an important reconciliation process with Namibia.

Because we can't undo mistakes of the past.

But we can unite for a better future. And we can choose to do so every day through our own actions.

Facing up to our colonial history to me means doing the right thing, but it also means that we have to stand up to the imperialist atrocities we are witnessing at this time.

Russia does not have a better future in mind for Ukraine.

Ukraine is an independent state that gave up its nuclear arsenal in the 1990s because it believed in the principles and guarantees of this Charter.

And in its bodies, such as the Security Council.

Three decades later, it is attacked by a P5 country, one of the countries that bears, as the Charter says “the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security”.

Russia's war against Ukraine has been destroying Ukrainian cities, schools and hospitals for almost 1000 days now.

And it is ravaging the security order of my continent, Europe.

Its ripple effects have been felt by so many around the world.

Many of you are feeling the consequences of this war in your own countries, also when it comes to food prices.

So I understand that some of you are asking, also in the Security Council two days ago, “wouldn't the war be over if you Europeans just stopped providing Ukraine with weapons?”

There's nothing wrong with asking that. Because we all yearn for peace.

But the idea that if there were no defensive weapons, there would be no fighting and no dying in Ukraine is as simple as it is wrong.

We have seen what happened in June when Ukraine invited Russia to an international peace summit.

Instead of stopping his attack and coming to the negotiating table, Putin sent his response by bombing a children's hospital.

As long as Putin is not willing to come to the negotiating table, stopping our support for self-defence would simply mean leaving the children's hospitals in Ukraine defenceless.

It would mean more war crimes, not less. Possibly in other countries, too.

Time and again within the last months, Putin's Russia has been toying with the inviolability of the borders of the Baltic states and Poland.

Two weeks ago, Russia fired a missile against a civilian grain ship in Romanian territorial waters.

This is why today I am also asking for your support. Your support in calling on Putin to cease his attacks and come to the negotiating table.

Not only for our European security, but also in your own interest.

If a permanent member of the Security Council is allowed to conquer and destroy its smaller neighbour, the very essence of this Charter is under attack.

If Russia stops attacking, the war is over. If Ukraine stops defending itself, Ukraine is over. And our Charter:

Sovereign equality – Article 2(1)

Peaceful settlement of disputes – Article 2(3)

Prohibition of the use of force – Article 2(4).

This is why we will continue to stand firmly with Ukraine, and our Charter, to achieve a peace that is just and lasting, with security guarantees.

A peace that secures Ukraine's existence as a free and independent country.

A peace that ensures Ukraine's and Europe's security.

And thus, the security of all of us.

Obviously, none of this is easy.

For almost 1000 days now, so many countries have been working for Ukrainian children to sleep in their beds again and not in air-raid shelters.

For almost a year, so many of us have been working to help end the suffering in the Middle East.

In countless talks in the region, countless meetings in UN bodies. And yes, sometimes I, too, feel like giving in to despair.

But throwing our hands in the air in resignation is not an option.

Because then the logic of “us against them” prevails.

And also, and this is important to me, we tend to forget one thing in these times of crisis: There is a lot we can achieve, and have already achieved, as an international community every day that we stand together. If we take each other's perspective.

To name only two striking recent examples, think about what we achieved at the COP in Dubai only a year ago. When we saw what is possible when we overcome “us versus them”. Industrial states against G77. The South versus the North.

When we listened instead, first of all, to those most affected by the climate crisis and to our SIDS partners who have been telling us for decades that the climate crisis is threatening their very existence. That it is the biggest global security threat. When, with more than 190 states, we finally agreed to signal an end of the fossil era at COP28. When we set up a Loss and Damage Fund for the most vulnerable.

We saw again what we can achieve just earlier this week when we passed The Pact for the Future. It took more than two years of tough negotiations, hundreds of hours discussing the text in conference rooms, overnight sessions, last-minute compromises.

Many helped and didn't give up. Our partners from Namibia, and so many others. And in the end, the vast majority of us found the strength to rally around what unites us:

rules instead of brute nationalism,

cooperation instead of division,

a humanity that is universal.

And it is in this very spirit that Germany is running for a non-permanent seat on the Security Council for 2027-2028.

We are running as defenders of the Charter, of our shared principles. And that also means that we need to take a critical look at the status quo of our multilateral institutions. Because in many ways, our multilateral system still reflects a time when hardly any of us here in the room had been born. When the striking number of 142 states represented in this chamber today were not sitting at the table.

That needs to change. That's why we are working for a reform of the Security Council to better reflect the world we live in. To ensure better representation of African countries.

And yes, it is also totally unjust that at the two most important international financial institutions, there are only Europeans and Americans at the top.

We need our institutions to be accepted by all of us, and for that they need to represent all of us.

All of us, not just the men of the world.

The one thing we definitely all have in common is this: women make up at least 50% of the population of every single country.

But in 80 years of this organisation, there has never been a female secretary-general.

So, if this organisation calls for equality and justice in the world, it is long overdue for us to show it here in New York.

We probably all should already practice saying the words “Madam Secretary General, you have the floor”.

Because the next Secretary-General of the United Nations has to be a woman.

Obviously, that alone will not immediately end all the remaining inequality for women in our own countries. In this General Assembly, we hail from all regions of the world but none of us has achieved full gender equality. And I believe we can only achieve it together, by learning from each other and by speaking up for women's rights, not only in our own countries, but everywhere.

Because women's rights are human rights, not something northern, western, eastern or southern.

They are universal.

And none of us wants to be paid less than her male colleague for the same job.

None of us wants to be raped.

None of us wants to be arrested for showing our hair.

No women and, I would guess, no men either.

Because a life is a life.

A Palestinian woman's life is a life.

An Israeli man's life is a life.

A Sudanese girl's life is a life.

A Ukrainian boy's life is a life.

Almost 80 years ago, the UN was founded for exactly that. On the realisation that simple slogans, that “us versus them” leads to disaster.

That humanity is indivisible.