The Palestinian Authority’s mission to the United Nations has been encouraging countries to walk out on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his speech before the U.N. General Assembly on Friday, per a message that JNS viewed.
“Palestine is reaching out to ask you to join the walkout by a majority of delegations” when “Israeli war criminal, Netanyahu, is set to speak,” the mission wrote. It encouraged states to “bring as many mission staff as possible,” and once the global body’s president announces Netanyahu, “delegations should collectively walk out of the assembly.”
Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, told JNS that he is aware of the Palestinian plan to fill the hall with junior staff, rather than senior diplomats, so “cameras capture a misleading and staged image of mass departure.”
“After a week filled with baseless accusations and incitement against Israel, the Palestinian representatives at the United Nations are once again resorting to theatrics,” he told JNS. “These are not acts of diplomacy but cheap stunts designed to distract from the truth.”
The Israeli envoy added that “no stage-managed display can conceal the reality of Palestinian support for terror or prevent Israel from speaking the truth,” and that the Palestinian delegation is “adept at empty spectacle.”
It was unclear at press time which, if any, countries have responded.
The Palestinian mission stated that a collective walkout would “send a clear message to Netanyahu and his government that no one is willing to aid, abet or be complicit in its genocide and war crimes and illegal occupation, which all peace-loving states and peoples demand must come to an end.”
The request came during a week in which eight countries announced that they recognized a Palestinian state. World leaders accused the Jewish state from the U.N. podium of crimes for Israel’s prosecution of its defensive war against Hamas and its counterterror operations in Judea and Samaria.
