Danon’s term at UN coming to an end with no replacement named
A source cited legal complications in the decision, due to the prolonged interim government.
By LAHAV HARKOVIsrael ambassador to the UN Danny Danon speaks at the UNSC(photo credit: screenshot)
Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon’s term is supposed to end at the end of the year, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to choose a new envoy.Netanyahu must decide in the next two weeks whether to extend Danon’s tenure in Turtle Bay or announce a temporary or permanent replacement.“No one knows” what the situation of the Israeli Mission to the UN will be in two weeks, a source close to Danon said, because it’s Netanyahu’s choice, while the Prime Minister’s Office said a decision had yet to be made.The source said that there may be legal complications in the decision, due to the prolonged interim government.Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit could block the government from making a permanent, high-profile appointment at this time, and even if he allowed it, the decision would likely be countered by petitions to the High Court of Justice.The UN ambassador’s term was supposed to end in August, but Netanyahu extended it to the end of 2019.Despite making sure to keep in contact with Likud activists, Danon, a former MK and deputy defense minister, has less of a political interest to return to Israel at this time. Primaries for the Likud list were canceled ahead of March’s election, and it is unlikely that he would be appointed minister in the event of a Likud victory, because there is stiff competition between senior Likud lawmakers for cabinet posts.Netanyahu offered Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan the job before both elections this year, but he rejected it.“After considering the offer to be appointed Israeli Ambassador to the UN, I decided I must continue in my job as Minister of Public Security and Strategic Affairs and stay in Israel in this important period to do all I can to bring about a victor for the Likud led by Netanyahu,” Erdan said in August.Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer’s term was meant to end, after two extensions, in July, but was extended yet again until next summer.
