Israel “refuses to surrender to those who seek our destruction,” Gilad Erdan, Jerusalem’s former envoy to the United Nations and the United States, told the JNS International Policy Summit on Tuesday.
“The sanctity of life is one of the central values upon which the Jewish state was founded,” said Erdan, who has served as the global president of Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency medical service, since September 2024.
Since the start of the war triggered by the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, he told attendees at the Waldorf Astoria in Jerusalem, “Israel has faced missiles, drones and terror threats from multiple fronts.
“When hundreds of missiles were launched at Israel, MDA teams did not run from danger—they moved toward it,” Erdan continued. “While civilians were told to remain in shelters, MDA personnel entered damaged buildings and treated the wounded.”
Erdan, who served on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Security Cabinet for some seven years, credited his organization for strengthening the resilience of the Israeli home front, saying citizens know that “whenever you need help,” MDA teams will show up “within minutes.”
He praised the organization’s medics and paramedics for their heroism during the war, calling them “warriors in white.”
In meetings with Jewish communities worldwide, Erdan said, “one thing connects us all: the understanding that the State of Israel is much, much more than a country.” He added, “It is a shared responsibility of all of us.”
Israel in the coming years will continue to face threats from the “radical ayatollah regime” in Iran and its terrorist proxies, the former ambassador warned.
“Whatever happens in the negotiations in Switzerland, we must have no illusions,” said Erdan. “Iran will not abandon its nuclear ambitions. The regime will continue to support, arm and fund terrorist proxies. Yes, Iran suffered immense damage because of the remarkable cooperation between Israel and the United States of America, but the regime is now feeling renewed confidence. It is telling itself and the region that it survived the joint American-Israeli assault. Wounded? Yes. But still, sadly, standing.”
Jerusalem must not allow Iran to turn its military failures into a strategic victory, he warned, calling on the Israeli government to continue its military assault on Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon despite U.S. criticism, and work on “developing national security sovereignty.
“We must rely first and foremost on ourselves. We must develop independent capabilities in military production, weapons systems and critical technologies, and we must urgently invest far more seriously in the narrative war and the battle for public opinion.”
Erdan at the conference launched a report he co-authored, titled “From U.N. Bureaucracy to American Global Leadership,” as part of his role as an adviser to the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy.
“As Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, I saw first-hand how an institution created to defend peace and human rights became a platform for hostile regimes and the engine of an obsessive campaign to demonize Israel,” he explained.
The report “shows that this is not only Israel’s problem; the U.N. today undermines critical American interests, and advances the positions of China and other U.S. adversaries, while the American taxpayer funds the bill,” he said, urging Washington to “completely” defund the world body.
The 2026 JNS International Policy Summit, which started on Sunday and was preceded by a weekend VIP gathering and tours around Judea, comes one year after the inaugural JNS Summit also held in Jerusalem.
The three-day conference included addresses and panels on U.S.-Israel relations, the war with Iran, Israel’s military, diplomatic and legal battles, the wave of global antisemitism in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, as well as relations with the Christian world.
