Danon slams Ban Ki-moon for criticism of Israel during UNGA opening speech
“Instead of focusing on Palestinian terror and incitement, and instead of compelling Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table, the Secretary General chose to criticize Israel once again."
By DANIELLE ZIRIUpdated: SEPTEMBER 20, 2016 19:07What the UN General Assembly means for Israel
NEW YORK - Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon slammed United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for pointing fingers at Israel during his opening address at the UN General Assembly’s annual debate, which began on Tuesday.“As a friend of both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, it pains me that this past decade has been ten years lost to peace,” Ban said in his remarks. “Ten years lost to illegal settlement expansion. Ten years lost to intra-Palestinian divide, growing polarization and hopelessness. This is madness.”The Secretary General mentioned that “the occupation grinds into its 50th year” and added that “replacing a two-state solution with a one-state construct would spell doom: denying Palestinians their freedom and rightful future, and pushing Israel further from its vision of a Jewish democracy towards greater global isolation.”Ambassador Danon reacted to the UN chief’s speech and said that “the real madness belongs to the UN.”“Instead of focusing on Palestinian terror and incitement, and instead of compelling Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table, the Secretary General chose to criticize Israel once again,” he continued. “This is an obsession with Israel and it must end.”“At a time when Palestinian terror is on the rise in Israel, the Secretary General chose to criticize us and ignore the direct responsibility of Abbas and the Palestinian leadership who continue to incite towards terror.”Danon has called out the Secretary General multiple times over his first year at the UN for statements directed against Israel.Just last week, after Ban Ki-moon slammed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for releasing a video accusing Palestinians of attempting to conduct ethnic cleansing of Jews in a future Palestinian state, Danon responded that Ban had a “distorted view of the situation in Israel.”“Instead of directly condemning Hamas for building tunnels and a terrorist infrastructure, instead of investing resources in stopping Palestinian incitement and terrorism, the secretary-general has chosen to regularly condemn Israel,” he added.