While the UN appeared to be sticking to its two-state hypothesis to distance itself from Trump’s alternative, the reality is that there was no collective effort on behalf of the UN to assert the right of Palestinians to their land and to their return.
While the UN appeared to be sticking to its two-state hypothesis to distance itself from Trump’s alternative, the reality is that there was no collective effort on behalf of the UN to assert the right of Palestinians to their land and to their return.
If Israel had its way, and it almost does, the entire world would fall prey to the spin of former Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, who has described his tenure at the international institution as “the most intense and demanding position in the Israeli diplomatic world.”
This at an institution which not only endorsed the 1947 Partition Plan in favour of the Zionist colonisation project, but also glossed over the 1948 Nakba, recognised Israel as a state, and has to date and will continue in the future to deny Palestinians their right to legitimate anti-colonial resistance, let alone insist that Israel embarks upon decolonisation.
Danon’s recently published book, “In the Lion’s Den: Israel and the World” was the subject of an in-depth report by the Times of Israel, in which contradictions abounded between Danon’s purported burden of isolation at the UN, and the US’s intense lobbying for Israeli inclusion, particularly during the Trump administration’s tenure.
UN Resolution 2334, which was considered a victory due to the US abstention, is described by Danon as the former US President Barack Obama wanting “to conclude his term with a UN resolution that would define the legacy of his Middle East Policy.”
As if a symbolic and futile gesture can undo what Obama paved the way for in terms of aiding Israeli impunity at an international level, which was taken to unprecedented heights by Donald Trump’s presidency.
Danon’s tenure as ambassador during the Trump administration’s era was met with the usual spineless criticism at an international level. The only difference was that the Trump-Netanyahu alliance overtly exposed US foreign policy, granting Israel a series of conditions which included unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocating the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Danon’s spin, however, and that of former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, eliminated the prominence of the Trump administration’s policies and the temporary furore it caused, to focus instead on the hyped-up admonishments issued at an international level under the pretence of upholding international law.
In the preface to the book, Haley writes, “One of the first things I told him [Danon] was that so long as I was ambassador, Israel would have a friend on the Security Council – and America would never abstain again,” in a bid to highlight the Trump administration’s opposition to the US veto over UN Resolution 2334 under Obama.
Besides the obvious US support for Israel at the UN, Danon’s allegations of isolation at the institution are unfounded. In 2019, the international community publicly adopted Israel’s narrative of impunity, completely blaming Palestinians for the settler-colonial state’s aggression against Gaza.
When state colonial violence becomes classified as retaliation, Danon’s propaganda should be easy to discern as fabricated anti-Israel bias. Israel was never isolated at the UN.
On the contrary, and particularly during Trump’s tenure, the UN’s pretence over upholding Palestinian rights reached unprecedented levels, particularly over the so-called deal of the century.
As Trump’s alternative to the two-state compromise became a mainstream topic, and the US administration openly pushed for eliminating the status of Palestinian refugees and the Palestinian right of return, the international community held back from safeguarding the Palestinian people’s political rights.
While the UN appeared to be sticking to its two-state hypothesis to distance itself from Trump’s alternative, the reality is that there was no collective effort on behalf of the UN to assert the right of Palestinians to their land and to their return.
The UN and Trump worked simultaneously to reward Israeli colonisation, because both the deal of the century and the two-state compromise depend upon the international community to marginalise and eliminate the existence of Palestinian refugees – a major key to decolonisation.
In light of this, how can Danon speak of an isolated Israel, when Israel’s international law violations are rewarded with the dissemination of the settler-colonial state’s security narrative, which in turn allows perpetual cycles of violence, murder and displacement of the Palestinian people?
