The National / February 24, 2022
Riyad Mansour called on Security Council to protect ‘long-suffering people’
Palestine’s envoy to the UN wore a black mask adorned with the phrase “end apartheid” in an attempt to urge the Security Council to stop Israel from discriminating against Palestinians.
Speaking at a monthly meeting on the Middle East in New York on Wednesday, Riyad Mansour called on the council to protect “our long-suffering people”, and used the word “apartheid” 15 times.
“This council may not be ready to use the word but apartheid is, and has been, for a while now, our reality,” said the Palestinian envoy.
“Israel may be outraged by the word [but] everyone else should be outraged by the policy. Condemnations alone will never suffice to deter Israel. It is time to translate your words into actions. Actions to end apartheid.”
In his own address, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, did not acknowledge the Palestinian’s accusations.
Instead, he focused on Hamas, urging the council to recognize the group as a “radical terror organization” for “deliberately targeting civilian populations, all in the name of advancing the destruction of the State of Israel”.
“Countries all around the world have recognized Hamas as the terror organization that it is, but sadly, this council has failed to do so,” he said.
The Israeli ambassador criticized the use of the word apartheid after the meeting, describing it as “a joint campaign between ‘human rights organizations’ and the Palestinians with the mission of delegitimizing Israel as a Jewish democratic state”.
