The Blogs: Erdan’s Swan Song

“Jerusalem will never fall again!”

Thus, Gilad Erdan opened his speech at the emergency UN council on Tuesday, which was to be his final speech given as an ambassador of Israel to the UN. These five simple words were laced with criticism of this international body formed in the ashes of World War Two and the Holocaust. This is the body whose preamble to its charter reads as follows:

“WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom”

Unfortunately, time has revealed that while the goals of the UN are noble, its actual resolutions are much less so. In fact, during Erdan’s four years in the UN, he was continuously forced to deal with blatant anti-Israel accusations and resolutions.

According to Hillel Neuer, the executive director of the UN Watch, in 2023 the UN passed one resolution against each of the following countries: Iran, Syria, North Korea, Myanmar, Crimea, Russia, and the US for human rights violations, yet it passed 15 resolutions against Israel. Not one resolution was passed against China, Pakistan, or Venezuela. (https://unwatch.org/2023-unga-resolutions-on-israel-vs-rest-of-the-world/) I guess they ran out of ideas for resolutions by the time they finished with Israel.

This emergency session on Tuesday played right to the tune of previous UN accusations against Israel. The UN was meeting to discuss Israel’s attack on Al-Tabain school in Gaza this past Saturday. The Gazan Health Ministry accused Israel of targeting schools and other public areas. As ambassador, it was Erdan’s job to respond. I think it’s fair to say that his response after four years of these absurd claims was his swan song.

The climax of his speech came when he held up the picture of some of the terrorists that Israel neutralized during the operation last Saturday in the school. The picture contained just some of the 31 terrorists hiding in a school against international law. According to Erdan, these terrorists included “platoon commanders, mortar and rocket operatives, cell commanders and intelligence operatives”. These were the people for whom this emergency session was called. In contrast, he raised a picture of the 11 children killed by Hezbollah while playing soccer a few weeks ago. He held the two pictures side by side explaining that the UN called for an emergency session to discover facts about the killing of these terrorists, but not the killing of these children. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJf3mqSwAgM&t=42s)

I was even embarrassed for the UN.

Erdan served as Israel’s ambassador to the UN during some of the most complex years of Israeli history. He faced the severe antagonism of the Arab states, their allies, and even some Western countries. He used powerful but often controversial visual aids to demonstrate his points, and he was forced to spend most of his time criticizing what he saw at the UN, which was originally founded to defend justice among the world’s nations.

During Erdan’s term, the UN put the Israeli army on the list of global offenders who committed violations against children, called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and overwhelmingly backed the Palestinian bid for membership. Guterres, the secretary-general of the UN, justified the attacks of October 7^th saying “It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.” It also took four months for UN women to condemn the sexual attacks of October 7^th.

When you think about it, all of these things were inevitable under Guterres’ reign as secretary General of the UN. In January, Guterres blamed Israel for its “collective punishment of the Palestinian people.” This was immediately before he called for a humanitarian ceasefire. Just to be clear: If there had been a ceasefire in January, Israel would never have taken control of the Philadelphi Corridor, neutralized thousands of terrorists including Hezbollah’s most senior military commander Fuad Shukr and Hamas’ senior political leader Ismail Haniyeh, rescue the four hostages, Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Koslov, and Shlomi Ziv, and almost completely dismantle Hamas’ military and political wing. In March, Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz pointed out that Guterres ““stood today on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing and blamed Israel for the humanitarian situation in Gaza, without condemning in any way the Hamas-ISIS terrorists who plunder humanitarian aid, without condemning UNRWA that cooperates with terrorists — and without calling for the immediate, unconditional release of all Israeli hostages.” https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/fm-katz-under-guterres-un-has-become-antisemitic-anti-israel-body-that-emboldens-terror/

Guterres has made no secret about whose side he is on in this conflict. Erdan’s term as ambassador to the UN has been an uphill battle from the beginning. But even his critics must agree that he faced his task with an unyielding faith in the truth of his cause and a profound love for his country. In true Israeli fashion, he said what needed to be said. He spoke the unspoken truths about the anti-Israel leanings in the UN, and he did so in dramatic and memorable fashion.

Erdan loves drama. He utilized it to get into the heads of the members of the UN and the public. When the President of Iran was allowed to speak in front of the UN General Assembly, Erdan walked around the hall clasping a picture of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested for not wearing a hijab. He was thrown out of the UN hall for his efforts, but he made his point. The UN should not be giving mass murderers a podium. After his actions, he received thousands of emails and text messages from Iranians thanking him. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MkC5zuVDCQ)

But he mainly utilized his dramatic flair to defend Israel. Immediately prior to the General Assembly vote of 143 to 9 in favor of the Palestinian Authority’s bid for full membership (which the US would later veto), Erdan announced,

“Today, you are also about to grant privileges and rights to the future terror state of Hamas. You have opened up the United Nations for modern-day Nazis, to the Hitler of our times…So here it is. I present to you the future outcome of today’s vote…the soon-to-be President, Yahya Sinwar, President tyrant of the State of Hamas, sponsored by the UN, and he owes his deepest gratitude to you, the General Assembly,” and he held up a picture of Sinwar with the caption “President Sinwar, the terror state of Hamas, sponsored by the UN.”

Later in his speech he stood up with a small paper shredder and exclaimed “This day will go down in infamy. I want the entire world to remember this moment, this immoral act…today I want to hold up a mirror for you, so you can see what exactly you are inflicting upon the UN Charter with this destructive vote. You are shredding the UN Charter with your own hands.” He then proceeded to shred a copy of the UN Charter. (https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/angry-israeli-envoy-shreds-un-charter-over-resolution-supporting-full-membership-of-palestine/articleshow/110024676.cms?from=mdr)

Despite his flair for drama, or perhaps in light of it, Erdan ended his swan song on Tuesday with three simple words. They are the words that inspired his four years in the UN, and they are the words that he felt the UN and the world needed to finally internalize.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Thank you, Gilad Erdan for serving your country faithfully, for disclosing the hatred of Israel embedded in the UN, and for bringing Israel’s struggles to light.