Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan called out Palestinian envoy to the UN Riyad Mansour during UN Security Council a debate on the Middle East over the PA's "pay-for slay" policy.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
"Mr. Ambassador, are you not ashamed to come before the Security Council when your government is paying hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorists? How can you speak about [Israeli] aggression when your leaders and your schools glorify the murder of Jews and incite terrorism?" Erdan blasted.
The Palestinian Authority routinely spends hundreds of millions of dollars on payments to terrorists imprisoned in Israel and to the families of terrorists killed while carrying out attacks against Israel.
Ramallah's "pay-for-slay" policy is a widely condemned practice that takes a growing cut of Ramallah's budget – funded by donor countries in the West and the Arab world – every year.
Still, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas maintains it is the PA's "duty" to keep up the payments, which he branded "a national and social obligation," and have vowed to continue paying terrorists' salaries "even if it bankrupts the PA."
Erdan further accused Mansour of hypocrisy for speaking about human rights "while your police forces are beating to death real civil society activists, such as Nizar Banat."
He noted that "the clearest example of the absurd approach of this council is the decision to invite Hanan Ashrawi – a woman who was a member of the PLO Executive Committee, and has been a PA politician for decades – to speak] as a representative of 'civil society.
"Ashrawi is not just a spokeswoman for the Palestinian political leadership. She opposes peace," he continued. "After the Abraham Accords were signed, she condemned them and said the Emirates and Bahrain were forced to sign them. Why does the council invite an enemy of peace? What's next – inviting [former Iranian President Hassan] Rouhani to represent 'civil society' in Iran?
"Unfortunately," he continued, "rather than pushing peace forward, the Security Council's debates on the Situation in the Middle East, only seem to perpetuate the conflict. Rather than helping to turn the vision of peace into a reality, these debates create an alternate and false reality.
"These biased debates give the Palestinians the illusion that they will never be held accountable for their crimes and that all of their radical demands could be granted by the international community. The unbalanced discussions only serve to strengthen Palestinian rejectionism of any further negotiations with Israel, thereby maintaining the conflict."
Turning his attention to what he called the UN Security Council's pattern of turning a blind eye to Iran's menacing conduct on the international stage, Erdan said, "Iran continues to spread death, destruction and instability as it seeks to advance Shiite hegemony and export terror around the world.
"While some members of the Security Council remain stuck in the mud of their anti-Israel obsession, the real threat to global security is quickly advancing. Iran continues to progress towards its goal of becoming a nuclear threshold state. The murderous ayatollahs' regime continues to openly violate its international commitments in the fields of enrichment, stockpiling, uranium metal, and advanced R&D while obstructing the IAEA.
"It is using the diplomatic talks, to buy time, so that it can enrich uranium to near weapons-grade levels while gaining nuclear know-how that can never be reversed.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
"Let me be clear: Israel favors a diplomatic solution. A diplomatic solution that would truly prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear threshold state. Yet seeing as Iran poses an existential threat to Israel, the State of Israel can never and will never, allow Iran to become a nuclear threshold state.
"We will do whatever is necessary to stop Iran's nuclear drive and counter the threat from its armies of proxies, along and beyond our borders," Erdan concluded.
JNS.org contributed to this report.
