Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan addressing the October 29, 2021 special session of the United Nations General Assembly. Photo: Permanent Mission of Israel to the UN

Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Gilad Erdan on Monday condemned Palestinian terrorism during a speech in the UN Security Council.

Erdan’s speech followed the Security Council’s passing a presidential statement denouncing “continuing Israeli settlement activities.” The presidential statement marks the first time that the Security Council issued an opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 2016.

A separate resolution, proposed by the United Arab Emirates and lobbied for by the Palestinian mission to the UN, demanded that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory” had been weighed by the body before it was tabled after mediation from the United States.

“The Palestinian Authority is a terrorist entity that in 2022 alone rewarded killers and their families with $175 million for killing Israelis,” Erdan said during a roughly 15 minute speech. “You are all familiar with the Palestinians’ ‘pay for slay’ system, yet you are willing to let it continue without condemnation.”

Erdan added that Palestinian Authority’s support of terror has made reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians “impossible,” explaining that it goes beyond paying the family members of terrorists and as far as indoctrinating school children into glorifying violent acts and aspiring to partake in them. He also argued that Palestinians’, including Fatah party officials, celebrating the murders of Israeli never prompts the “concern and dismay” that follows Israel’s efforts to manage its security.

“The Palestinian culture of hate and terror is real. How can this council justify ignoring it and never addressing it?” he continued. “And despite the horrific acts of Palestinian terror carried out over the past weeks, the Holocaust-distorting Abbas refused to even issue one word of condemnation, not even one word.”

Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad H. Mansour also addressed the Security Council on Monday, saying, “The Palestinian people deserve freedom and an end to the historic injustice of the nakba they endured seventy years ago and that is still going on today.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.