Agence France Presse falsely reports today that Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan failed to respond to the Palestinian representative’s vilification of Israel as an “apartheid” state during the Security Council’s monthly meeting on the Middle East yesterday. In fact, Erdan directly refuted Riyad Mansour’s assault on the Jewish state’s legitimacy.
In his own address, Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, did not address the Palestinian’s accusations, but rather chose to direct attention towards Hamas, exhorting the council to recognize the group as a “radical terror organization” for “deliberately targeting civilian populations all in the name of advancing the destruction of the State of Israel.”
The misreporting also appears in AFP’s French and Arabic coverage.
Today, I addressed the @UN Security Council where I exposed the continued hypocrisy of the Palestinians & the international community’s misguided obsession with Israel. 1/6 pic.twitter.com/Pxtqagl9kW
— Ambassador Gilad Erdan גלעד ארדן (@giladerdan1) February 24, 2022
But a quick glance at the diverse state of Israel is more than enough to show how unfounded these accusations are. Can anyone honestly look me in the eye and tell me that Israel, a country that protects the social and political equality of all of its citizens, is guilty of systematic injustice? A country in which Arab doctors, Arab members of parliament and Arab ministers serve alongside their Jewish counterparts. Can any decent person justifiably associate Israel with this most horrific form of discrimination?Just this week, Khaled Kabub, a Muslim judge, was elected in Israel to the Israeli Supreme Court while an Israeli Arab member of our parliament was appointed as Israel’s council general to Shanghai. The delusional reports have the audacity to ignore the facts, focus on the fabrications and echo a narrative of lies promoted by the terror organizations and the corrupt Palestinian Authority just to single out and delegitimize Israel as a Jewish state.Fortunately, this time, moral and like-minded democratic countries have condemned these egregious reports while the only ones who commended them are terror groups and the Palestinian observer who referenced them today.
The Palestinian U.N. ambassador, wearing a mask saying “End Apartheid,” accused Israel of engaging in “apartheid” in nearly a dozen ways on Wednesday, and Israel’s ambassador accused him of regurgitating claims from the Palestinian Authority, which he said “promotes hate, incitement, violence and terror.” …Israel’s Erdan responded first by attacking the U.N. 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 recent reports, he said, “have attempted to brand Israel with absurd claims and heinous accusations.”
“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 Israel “is guilty of systematic injustice,” pointing to its Arab doctors, members of parliament and ministers serving alongside their Jewish counterparts. He added that this week a Muslim judge was elected to the Israeli Supreme Court, and he said an Israeli-Arab member of parliament was appointed Israel’s consul-general to Shanghai.
CAMERA has contacted AFP to request correction of this blatant falsehood. Stay tuned for any updates.