Erdan Calls Out Russian Exploitation of Palestinian Issue in Security Council

Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan decried a Russian maneuver to highlight the Palestinian-Israeli conflict while the Ukraine crisis mounted on Wednesday.

“One might wonder what the urgency was to turn the closed monthly debate into an open one while such critical matters to global security are being discussed in the General Assembly as we speak,” Erdan said in his speech at the Security Council.

Wednesday’s session was changed to an open debate by Russia, which chairs the meeting.

A Western diplomat familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel that the decision by Russia appeared to be an effort to “distract” from events in Ukraine.

Erdan also addressed recent claims by the UNHRC that Israel is an apartheid state, citing the appointment of Meretz MK Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi, an Arab Israeli, to become consul general in Shanghai.

“Can any decent person justify associating Israel with this most horrific form of discrimination?” Erdan asked rhetorically during the Security Council session.

His remarks came in contrast to those of Opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu, who earlier in the day denounced Zoabi’s appointment as scandalous and called on the government to rescind it, on the grounds that she refuses to acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state.

When asked about it, the Meretz MK said she swore her allegiance to the Jewish and democratic state of Israel upon entering the Knesset last year.