Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly on Friday morning, Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan warned the global body supposedly meant to preserve peace and punish violence that it was about to make a grave mistake by voting to grant statehood membership status to "Palestine," making it a day that "will go down in infamy."
"Following the Allies' victory, this institution here, the United Nations, was founded with the mission of ensuring such tyranny never raises its ugly head again," Erdan reminded of the UN's founding in the wake of Hitler's terror. "Today, you're about to do the exact opposite and advance the establishment of a Palestinian terror state which will be led by the Hitler of our time," he declared.
"In the 1940s, the world united to destroy a murderous regime — yet today, with sick and twisted irony, the very body established to prevent evil is now welcoming a terror state into its ranks," Israel's representative to the UN reiterated. "What would Churchill say if he were alive today? What would Roosevelt think? They are turning in their graves."
Noting that Israel marked a somber Holocaust Remembrance Day earlier this week, Erdan said the "shameless" UN "has chosen to reward modern-day Nazis with rights and privileges" and even "as Israelis mourn the Jewish babies burned in the crematoria, you here at the UN usher in the collaborators of the Israeli babies burned on October 7."
"You will receive in return not only shame, but war in the future as well," Erdan warned the nations set to vote to approve Palestinians statehood status. "Bravo."
"Colleagues, today another travesty is being committed here by the General Assembly, an unforgivable act — the destruction of the United Nations charter," Erdan emphasized. "The UN charter, the sacred document which serves as the foundation of everything we are supposed to do here, is being trampled upon. It is being thrown out the window. You are spitting on the very values that were formulated to bind this organization," he declared. "With today's destructive resolution, you are circumventing the Security Council, ignoring its decision, and violating the norms this organization has abided by."
Reading from a pocket edition of the UN's charter, Erdan noted the two requirements for admitting new member states. "Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the current charter" and "the admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be affected by a decision of the general assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council."
"With today's vote, you are not only bypassing the Security Council in violation of the charter, but you are bastardizing the meaning of peace-loving," Erdan said. "You know that the Palestinians are the exact opposite of peace-loving."
The Israeli ambassador then reminded the UN of Palestinian's track record:
Since they rejected the UN partition plan in 1947, they rejected it, they have only tried to destroy Israel time and again. They are terror-loving, not peace-loving...The Palestinian Authority pays lifelong salaries to terrorists, it's in their budget. They teach martyrdom and jihad in their classrooms. They glorify death and murder. The Palestinians indoctrinate their children to murder Israelis and commit terrorist attacks. And then when Israel defends herself, the Palestinian representative stands here shedding his crocodile tears as if he did not send them all to commit suicide or terror attacks. Not a single Palestinian leader has condemned the October 7 massacre. This is who you want to bestow the rights of a state upon — a terror entity?
"Despite your obligation to the UN charter, you are here today to expose what the charter truly means to you," Erdan admonished. "When it comes to the lives of Israelis and Jews, the UN charter means nothing to you — nada, kaput."
"You know what you're doing today?" Erdan asked rhetorically. "You're gutting the charter and you're doing it in the wake of the most brutal massacre of my people since the Holocaust, on the ashes of the October 7 massacre. Why? The UN, an organization that was established in the aftermath of the systematic murder of six million Jews pays no heed to its founding charter and is advancing another genocidal regime that threatens the existence of the Jewish people," warned Erdan.
"I want the entire world to remember this moment, to remember this immoral act," Erdan continued. "So today, I will hold up a mirror for you," he said, pulling out a small paper shredder. "This is your mirror, so that you can see exactly what you are inflicting upon the UN character with this destructive vote," Erdan added as he began putting pages from his pocket UN charter through the shredder's blades.
"You are shredding the UN charter with your own hands," declared Erdan. "Shame on you."
Israel's UN Ambassador takes out a mini-shredder at the General Assembly podium to shred pages of a pocket-size UN Charter. pic.twitter.com/g3oYk81Qhi
— Benjamin Alvarez (@BenjAlvarez1) May 10, 2024
Erdan also warned that the vote granting UN privileges to Palestinians was "not only opening the UN's doors to the terror-supporting Palestinian Authority" which "does not even have control of its own territory."
"Hamas doesn't only control Gaza," he reminded the General Assembly which has "failed to even call them out by name" since October 7. "Hamas has also taken over Palestinian neighborhoods, Palestinian villages in Judea and Samaria — what you call the West Bank."
"In every poll, Hamas today is predicted to win Palestinian elections — if they ever happen," Erdan warned. "So today, the General Assembly is not only about to grant the right of a state to the Palestinian terror authority, today you are also about to grant privileges and rights to the future terror state of Hamas."
"You have opened up the United Nations to modern-day Nazis, to genocidal jihadists committed to establishing an Islamic state across Israel and the region, murdering every Jewish man, woman and child," Erdan declared. "It makes me sick. In the years to come you will have to explain how, in opposition to all morality and the UN charter, you did everything to give a state to a group of mass-murderers, to the Hitlers of our times."
Holding up a poster board with a photo of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Erdan read the caption: "I present yo you the future outcome of today's vote...soon to be Yahya Sinwar, President — tyrant — of the State of Hamas, sponsored by the UN."
With a warning for the Palestinian representative who spoke before him at the UN, Erdan said Hamas would rise to power and "he will be recalled. If he returns, he will likely be thrown off a rooftop by Hamas, just as the Palestinian Authority representatives were when Hamas took over Gaza back in 2007. In his place, this body will welcome a Hamas representative to its ranks, a terrorist diplomat whose stated goal is Jewish genocide — just like his Iranian counterpart here."
The new precedent of accepting terror-supporting and -rewarding "states" to the UN, Erdan warned, means "we may see here representatives of ISIS or Boko Haram that will sit among us."
"This will be fitting," Erdan noted, "for the new moral standard being set here today: giving the rights of a state to an entity that is already partially controlled by terrorists and will be replaced by a force of child-murdering Hamas rapists."
Invoking the horrors of World War II again, Erdan said that what the UN was about to carry out "is reminiscent of how the powers of Europe capitulated to Hitler in the Munich Agreement. The UN is targeting the law-abiding democracy of Israel while appeasing the Nazi jihadist forces of Hamas in Iran."
The General Assembly voted following Erdan's powerful remarks and, as he warned, shamefully granted "Palestine" membership status with the privileges of a state with 143 members voting in favor of the membership resolution, nine voting against it, and 25 members abstaining.