Permanent Observer of Palestine to the UN Riyad Mansour, wearing a mask that read: “End Apartheid,” accused Israel of engaging in “apartheid” in nearly a dozen ways on Wednesday, while Israeli Ambassador to the US and the UN Gilad Erdan accused him of regurgitating claims from the Palestinian Authority, which he said “promotes hate, incitement, violence and terror.”
The exchange at the UN Security Council’s monthly meeting on the Middle East reflected the huge chasm between Israel and the Palestinians, and the immense challenge to ending decades of conflict with a two-state solution that would see the antagonists live side-by-side in peace, as the UN and many others have sought for years.
Mansour described as “apartheid” a number of Israeli actions, including its denial of Palestinians who were uprooted from their homes 70 years ago the right to return, its different laws for Palestinians and Israeli settlers, and its restrictions on land where Palestinians can live and build.
Photo: Mark Garten / UN / AFP
He said that Erdan last month brought a stone into the council chamber, so members could visualize the violence Israelis experience.
“I am so sorry, but the doors of this chamber could not fit Israeli F-16s, tanks, warships, military jeeps, drones, bombs and missiles,” Mansour said.
The council might not be ready to use the word “apartheid,” he said.
However, it is, and has been, “our reality,” and while Israel might be outraged by Palestinians using the word, “everyone else should be outraged by the policy,” Mansour said.
Erdan responded first by attacking the UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other rights groups for launching “a jihad war against the only vibrant democracy in the Middle East.”
Their reports “have attempted to brand Israel with absurd claims and heinous accusations,” Erdan said.
“You can see the campaign that started here today on the mask of my counterpart,” Erdan said, referring to Mansour’s mask.
“But make no mistake, this is a joint campaign between these organizations and the Palestinians with the mission of delegitimizing Israel as a Jewish democratic state,” he said.
Erdan asked whether anyone could say that Israel “is guilty of systematic injustice,” citing Arab doctors, lawmakers and ministers serving alongside their Jewish counterparts.
This week a Muslim judge was elected to the Israeli Supreme Court, Erdan said, adding that an Israeli-Arab lawmaker was appointed as Israel’s consul-general in Shanghai.
UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland told the council that this month has seen “a worrying continuation” of “the destabilizing deterioration of the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories.”
He cited daily violence in the West Bank, mounting tensions in east Jerusalem and Palestinian refugee camps, settler violence, and “a fragile calm” in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
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