NEW YORK –Israel's mission to the United Nations in New York, led by Ambassador Gilad Erdan, launched a novel exhibition on Tuesday at the Manhattan UN headquarters on the "Jewish Nakba," the expulsion of the Jews from Arab countries and Iran. The opening comes a day ahead of the "Day to Mark the Departure and Expulsion of Jews from Arab Countries and Iran" that is marked on Wednesday.
NEW YORK – Israel’s mission to the United Nations in New York, led by Ambassador Gilad Erdan, launched a novel exhibition on Tuesday at the UN headquarters on the “Jewish Nakba,” the expulsion of the Jews from Arab countries and Iran.
The opening came a day ahead of the “Day to Mark the Departure and Expulsion of Jews from Arab Countries and Iran,” which was marked on Wednesday.
Erdan said he launched the exhibition in an attempt “to fight in every way the false narrative that the Palestinians spread at the UN.”
The showcase features historical documentation that illustrates the lives of the Jews in Arab countries and Iran and their history, which were cut short following the UN Partition Plan.
The day following the UN decision, Arab countries began to expel the Jews with violence and brutality, and hundreds of thousands were forced to flee, leaving their lives behind.
“There is immense bias at the United Nations."
Ambassador Gilad Erdan
“For 75 years now here in the UN, a completely false story has been told about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Erdan said. “Since the Partition Plan, which the Arabs rejected and the State of Israel accepted, the story of the Palestinian nakba [catastrophe] has been told here at the UN, a story that erases the real Nakba that occurred immediately after the announcement of the Partition Plan: the story of the nakba of Arab Jewry.
“A day after the decision, the Jews were violently and cruelly expelled from Arab countries and Iran. This year, after a long struggle, we managed to place an exhibition with photos that document the story of the real nakba. I will continue to fight for the truth and against the false narrative that the Palestinians and their supporters spread.”
The exhibition is slated to run for a week.
Fighting UN bias
Erdan, who has been serving as UN ambassador since 2020, frequently hosts events and makes statements to confront what he calls “immense bias at the United Nations” against Israel.
In May, he invited scores of fellow UN ambassadors from around the world to taste Israeli innovations in the foodtech sector – cream cheese made without cow’s milk, chickpea-based meat, vegan eggs, macadamia milk – while urging his colleagues to etch the delectable event into their memories.
“There is immense bias at the United Nations,” Erdan told approximately 150 ambassadors, officials and Jewish leaders.
“As representatives of your states, that sometimes vote singling out Israel,” he urged them to remember this event.
“Beyond being a refuge for a people still suffering from prejudice and violence, Israel is a hub of innovation with the goal of contributing to solving the world’s problems,” he said. “Israel should be singled out, but only for the immense good it is bringing to the world.”
To illustrate his disdain for the UN’s bias against Israel, Erdan dramatically tore up a report by the organization’s Human Rights Council during an address at the General Assembly in October.
“It’s always open season on Israel at the Human Rights Council,” he told the General Assembly.