Danny Danon
Danny DanonReuters

Israeli UN Ambassador UN Danny Danon and B'Tselem Director Haggai El-Ad faced off at the United Nations after El-Ad alleged that "Israel oppresses the masses and thinks it is a democracy".

During his address, El-Ad told the UN that "I am neither a traitor nor a hero. The heroes are the Palestinians who run their lives under these conditions".

"It's hard to explain what the Palestinians are going through under the occupation," alleged B'Tselem's director-general. "The real difficulty is to deal with the intolerance that is difficult every day."

"Almost two years of occupation have passed since the last time I spoke, and since then 370 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces and 294 homes have been destroyed."

"Shame on you. Shame on you, you collaborator" shot back Danon in Hebrew. "Mr. El-Ad, you are a citizen of the State of Israel who serves our enemies. They use you against us. The IDF soldiers are guarding you and you are coming here to defame them."

Displaying an official Palestinian Authority textbook that Mahmoud Abbas has authorized for the current school year, Danon blamed Abbas for the fanning the flames of incitement and for paying salaries to jailed terrorists.

"This textbook lists a number of so-called heroes – like Dalal Mughrabi – the terrorist responsible for a massacre that killed 38 people. This is Abbas’ culture of hate – right in front of you. This is the reason Palestinian schoolchildren learn that it is better to kill a Jew than keep a job," said Danon.

“Mahmoud Abbas is to blame,” Danon continued. “In his 13 years of rule, Abbas has done nothing but inspire this rampant culture of hate…He preaches tolerance in English and terror in Arabic…He has led his people down a path of self-destruction and misery, stealing their chance at a good life. He is the obstacle to peace. If you hope to see a better future between Israelis and Palestinians, you will join us in indicting Abbas.”

Danon also highlighted the Palestinian Authority’s “infamous ‘pay to slay’ policy that remains the crown jewel of Abbas’ incitement campaign. In this year’s budget, Abbas has allocated $355 million dollars toward the pay to slay policy. That’s 7% of the total PA budget.”

This money, Danon reminded the Council, will go into the pocket of the terrorist that murdered Kim Levengrond Yehezkel and Ziv Hagbi at the Barkan Industrial Area ten days ago: “Nearly half of every dollar [the international community] gives to the Palestinian people to build roads and schools is put in the pocket of those who murder Jews.”

“Abbas’ priority is clear," concluded Danon. "His aim is to incite, so ours must be to indict. If you really want to change the reality for Palestinians and Israelis, you must change the equation. Remove the source of the culture of hate and textbook terrorism. Only when that source is removed will we see a brighter result.”