Israel Ambassador’s Debut Speech at the UN Goes Dark

By COLlive reporter

Gilad Erdan, the new Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations, presented a scathing rebuke to the Palestinian leadership during his first speech at the monthly meeting of the Security Council of the United Nations on Monday.

Erdan, who will soon be appointed Israel’s ambassador to the United States in Washington, DC, was responding to a speech by Riad Malki, Foreign Affairs Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, which he said was “a typical false incitement speech.”

“Instead of seeing the agreements as an opportunity, the Palestinians are attacking the Arab countries that are making peace with us,” he said.

The United Arab Emirates, Sudan and Bahrain recently signed historic peace deals with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords brokered by the Administration of President Donald Trump.

Erdan went on to accuse the Security Council itself of not recognizing the momentum. “While the council’s talking points have not changed for decades, the Middle East has,” he pointed out.

“In the two months since I arrived in New York, I have witnessed a jarring dissonance between what this council chooses to focus on and what is actually happening in the Middle East,” Erdan noted, according to a report in the Algemeiner.

Erdan concluded, “I am committed to proving wrong all those who say that the Security Council is a lost cause. However, ignoring the most pressing issues in the Middle East and expressing bias when discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict makes it hard to do so. The council must recommit itself to pursuing peace and security, and not let politics dictate its actions in the Middle East.”

Erdan later reported that while he was speaking “there was a malfunction in the UN systems – this time, a technical malfunction.”

“The council members heard my speech without being able to see me,” he said. “The UN did apologize for the malfunction, but for the much more series malfunctions it has,” he added in reference to the decades’ long anti-Israel bias the organization is known for.

At the same meeting, US Ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft expressed similar sentiments, saying, “The simple truth is that the council repeats decades-old approaches to this conflict each month that go nowhere. Many UN member states are trapped in stale policies and narratives that will always fail to bring peace.”

“The United States has demonstrated for the first time in 25 years that a different approach to the situation in the Middle East can yield results,” she added. “Today, because of American leadership, Israel is closer to its Arab neighbors than ever before; and its Palestinian, direct neighbors should take advantage of this positive momentum. History will judge how this council responds to this historic moment — it can either shrink from the challenge or rise to the occasion.”