The same threats that were allowed to fester for years in Gaza are bubbling up in Judea and Samaria, Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, told the U.N. Security Council on Monday.
Danon added that it is time to move beyond the “speeches, theater and spectacle” of last week’s General Assembly and “face reality.”
The Israeli envoy compared the assembly of rockets in small workshops in Judea and Samaria to methods that Hamas has used in Gaza. One workshop was found in Tulkarem, some 15 miles from Netanya on Israel’s coast—about the distance between central London and Heathrow Airport.
“These are not far-off threats,” Danon told the council. “They are weapons built within minutes of Israeli towns and cities. Hidden workshops of death, right on our doorstep.”
Danon refuted French President Emmanuel Macron’s statement last week that Hamas doesn’t exist in Judea and Samaria. “Better check again,” he said.
Hamas claimed responsibility for killing six Israelis in a terror attack at a crowded bus stop in Jerusalem, and the Israeli military found Hamas infrastructure in Judea and Samaria and seized weapons that Iran shipped to Jenin, the envoy said.
Danon also said that the Palestinian Authority cannot govern the area under its control and that it has a “pay-for-slay” policy of rewarding terrorists, who kill and maim Israelis, with salaries.
“This is not social welfare. It is blood money,” he said. “The policy consumes about 8% of the Palestinian Authority’s entire budget.”
“Enough with the lies. Stop the payments,” he said. “Not in words, but with action.”
Mike Waltz, the newly minted U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said that the meeting is “yet another example of this council’s obsessive focus on Israel.” He added that there has been a “constant drumbeat of meetings” that “only distracts from, and unfortunately, undermines the serious work needed to address issues of international peace and security.”
The reason for the meeting—a council resolution declaring that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem violate international law—“exemplifies the outmoded thinking that has led to failure after failure in Middle East diplomacy,” Waltz said.
The Russian and British envoys criticized Israel. Vassily Nebenzia, the Russian ambassador, said that Israel’s settlements are “part of a long-term strategy that religious ultranationalists have consistently advanced for many years, justifying their violations of international law with references to the Old Testament.”
Barbara Woodward, the U.K. envoy, said that the Jewish state “continues its stranglehold on the Palestinian economy, further destabilizing the Palestinian Authority.”
