NEW YORK – Israel's Ambassador to the United States and the United Nations Gilad Erdan sharply criticized the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday during Middle East discussions for not holding the Palestinian leadership accountable for its actions.
Erdan's remarks came following the Council's decision to invite Hanan Ashrawi, a former senior leader in the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority, as a member of Palestinian civil society to brief the Council. He also condemned the Council for ignoring Iran's "murderous regime."
In his speech, Ambassador Erdan said, "Unfortunately, rather than pushing peace forward, the Security Council’s debates on the Situation in the Middle East, only seem to perpetuate the conflict. Rather than helping to turn the vision of peace into a reality, these debates create an alternate and false reality. These biased debates give the Palestinians the illusion that they will never be held accountable for their crimes and that all of their radical demands could be granted by the international community. The unbalanced discussions only serve to strengthen Palestinian rejectionism of any further negotiations with Israel, thereby maintaining the conflict."
He continued, saying, "the latest example of this absurd approach is the decision to invite, as a representative of civil society, an individual who was a member of the PLO Executive Committee, and who has been a Palestinian politician for decades. What’s next? Will you invite Hassan Rouhani and Javad Zarif as representatives of Iranian civil society?"
"Ashrawi is not just a lifelong spokesperson for the Palestinian political leadership. She is an opponent of peace. Following the Abraham Accords, she condemned these historic peace agreements, and claimed that the leaders of the UAE and Bahrain had been 'coerced and cajoled' into making peace with Israel. Does the Security Council really want to give a platform to an enemy of peace?"
On Iran, the ambassador added, "While some members of the Security Council remain stuck in the mud of their anti-Israel obsession, the real threat to global security, is quickly advancing. Iran continues to progress towards its goal of becoming a nuclear threshold state. The murderous Ayatollah regime continues to openly violate its international commitments in the fields of enrichment, stockpiling, uranium metal and advanced R&D, while obstructing the IAEA. It is using the diplomatic talks, to buy time, so that it can enrich uranium to near weapons-grade levels, while gaining nuclear know-how that can never be reversed. At the same time, Iran continues to spread death, destruction and instability throughout the region, as it seeks to advance a Shi'ite hegemony over the Middle East and exports terror around the world...
Let me be clear – Israel favors a diplomatic solution. A diplomatic solution that would truly prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear threshold state…
Yet seeing as Iran poses an existential threat to Israel, the State of Israel can never and will never, allow Iran to become a nuclear threshold state. We will do whatever is necessary to stop Iran’s nuclear drive, and counter the threat from its armies of proxies, along our borders and beyond our borders."
Erdan is known to frequently criticize the Council. In August, he sent a strongly worded emergency letter to the UN demanding an unequivocal condemnation of rocket attacks on northern Israel, following a heavy barrage of close to 20 rockets, later claimed to have been shot by Hezbollah, which was fired from Lebanon into Northern Israel.