Accusations Fly at U.N. Days After Palestinians, Israelis Pledge Calm

Palestinian and Israeli representatives clashed over the future intentions of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government at a U.N. Security Council meeting Wednesday, with the Palestinian U.N. ambassador pointing to an Israeli minister’s statement “denying our existence to justify what is to come.”

Israel’s U.N. ambassador countered that the minister had apologized, and accused the Palestinian leadership of regularly inciting terrorism and erasing Jewish history.

The Palestinian envoy urged the Security Council and the international community to mobilize every effort “to stop annexation, violence against our people, and provocations.” Everyone has a duty to act now “with every means at our disposal, to prevent a fire that will devour everything it encounters,” he said.

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan called his country “unquestionably the most vibrant liberal democracy in the Middle East” and accused the Palestinians of repeating lies, glorifying terrorists who spilled innocent Israeli blood, and “regurgitating fabrications” that are not going to solve the decades-old conflict.

“To the Palestinian representative, I say, ‘Shame on you. Shame on you.’ It is so audacious that you dare condemn the words of an Israeli minister who apologized and clarified what he meant, while your President and the rest of the Palestinian leadership regularly, regularly incite terrorism, never condemn the murders of Israeli civilians, praise Palestinian terrorists, and actively attempt to rewrite facts and the truth by erasing Jewish history,” he said.

Erdan accused the Palestinians of being “dead set on encouraging more violence” while Israel has taken significant steps to de-escalate the current tensions by sitting down with Palestinian officials in Jordan in February and on Sunday in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

In a joint communique afterward, the two sides had pledged to take steps to lower tensions ahead of the sensitive holiday season – including a partial freeze on Israeli settlement activity and an agreement to work together to “curb and counter violence.”