{"id":262460,"date":"2024-05-20T12:00:50","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T11:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=262460"},"modified":"2024-05-15T06:52:23","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T05:52:23","slug":"israels-un-ambassador-gilad-erdan-does-world-a-favor-by-making-plain-israels-doomed-to-fail-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/05\/israels-un-ambassador-gilad-erdan-does-world-a-favor-by-making-plain-israels-doomed-to-fail-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan Does World a Favor by Making Plain Israel’s Doomed-to-Fail Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, puts a copy of the U.N. Charter through a paper shredder on 10 May 2024.\u00a0 (Photo: Charly Triballeau\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Likud\u2019s tactical approach relies entirely on the U.S. for Israel\u2019s security, as the sole blocking force in a world community that is increasingly united and aghast at massive Israeli war crimes. How much longer can they carry on this way?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

14 May 2024 <\/em>– We owe an ironic debt of gratitude to Israel\u2019s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan for advancing the cause of the State of Palestine<\/a> at the United Nations. By delivering a speech to the UN General Assembly<\/u><\/a> that was so unhinged<\/a>, absurd, vulgar, insulting, undignified, and undiplomatic, Erdan helped to secure a lopsided vote of 143 to 9 in favor of Palestine\u2019s UN membership (the rest abstained or did not vote). But more than that, Erdan helped to clarify Israel\u2019s tactical approach\u2014and why it is doomed to fail.<\/p>\n

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Let us briefly consider the content of Erdan\u2019s speech. Erdan claimed, in short, that Palestine equals Hamas and Hamas equals Hitler\u2019s Nazi Reich. Erdan told the UN delegates that their nations support a state of Palestine because \u201cso many of you are Jew-hating.\u201d He then shredded the UN Charter at the podium, claiming that the delegates were doing the same by voting for Palestine\u2019s UN membership. All the while, on the very same day as his speech and UN vote, Israel<\/a> was amassing its forces for yet more slaughter of innocent civilians in Rafah.<\/p>\n

Erdan\u2019s rant rose to the level of venomous hatred and absurdity. Palestine would enter the UN as a peace-loving state, a commitment stated firmly and eloquently by the Palestinian Ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour (here<\/u><\/a> at 23:44). \u201cWe want peace,\u201d Ambassador Mansour declared unequivocally. Moreover, the two-state solution will of course not happen in a diplomatic vacuum. According to the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002<\/u><\/a>, and reaffirmed by the Arab and Islamic countries in Riyadh last November<\/u><\/a>, the Arab and Islamic countries have repeatedly pledged to support peace and the normalization of relations with Israel as part of the two-state solution.<\/p>\n

Contrary to Erdan\u2019s slander, the governments of UN General Assembly are of course not Jew-haters. Rather, they detest the Israeli government\u2019s assault in Gaza<\/a>, a carnage so vast that Israel is in the dock at the International Court of Justice on the charge of genocide. The same false charge has been made against student protestors who aren\u2019t anti-Jewish but rather anti-Apartheid and anti-genocide.<\/p>\n

The question then is what Erdan was actually doing making a speech that was so over-the-top that it could only serve to bolster, not reduce, the overwhelming worldwide vote for Palestine. Of course, he was doing what all politicians do in the social media age. He was grandstanding<\/u><\/a> for his adoring 157K followers on X (formerly Twitter) and for supporters in Israel\u2019s right-wing Likud Party.<\/p>\n

Contrary to Erdan\u2019s slander, the governments of UN General Assembly are of course not Jew-haters. Rather, they detest the Israeli government\u2019s assault in Gaza, a carnage so vast that Israel is in the dock at the International Court of Justice on the charge of genocide.<\/p>\n

At first, when listening to Erdan, I simply thought that the man was deranged, suffering from post-Holocaust trauma and seeing a Hitler lurking in every shadow. Yet such a view is na\u00efve. Erdan is a highly experienced political figure, well-educated and well trained, and was in full control of a carefully prepared speech (which included a poster and shredder as props). My initial mistake was to think he was speaking to the rest of the UN ambassadors and to viewers of the proceedings such as myself.<\/p>\n

The great difference of broadcast-era politics of yesteryear and the social-media era politics of today is that politicians no longer speak to the broad public. They now communicate almost entirely with their base and \u201cnear base.\u201d Each person today receives a personalized flow of \u201cnews\u201d that is jointly constructed by individual choices (which websites we visit), networks of digital \u201cfollowers,\u201d algorithms of platforms such as Facebook, X and TikTok, and hidden forcers that include the Intelligence agencies, government propagandists, corporations, and political operatives. As a result, politicians mobilize and motivate their base, and little beyond.<\/p>\n

Erdan the politician, and his Likud party, have been fighting against Palestinians for far longer than Hamas has dominated the politics of Gaza, indeed for longer than Hamas has existed. Erdan grew up inside the party, from its youth wing onward, in a movement that has always stood stridently against a Palestinian state and the two-state solution. In fact, Likud has long treated Hamas as a political prop, a ploy to divide the Palestinians and thereby to fend off international calls for the two-state solution. As even the Israeli media report<\/u><\/a>, Likud leaders worked with Arab nations over the years to keep Hamas funded, so that it would pose a continuing competition to the Palestinian authority.<\/p>\n

On the one side, American voters, especially young American voters, are aghast at Israel\u2019s brutality. On the other side, America\u2019s geopolitical position is crumbling.<\/p>\n

What, then, is Likud\u2019s strategy as Israel increasingly isolates itself from the rest of the world? Here too, Erdan\u2019s own political past ploys offer a clue. Erdan has been one of the Israel\u2019s shrewdest and most successful politicians in building Likud\u2019s alliance not only with the wealthy America\u2019s Jewish community but with America\u2019s Christian Evangelical community as well. The Christian Zionists ardently back Israel\u2019s control over the Holy Land, albeit as a prelude to their Armageddon, not exactly Likud\u2019s longer-term agenda.<\/p>\n

Likud\u2019s tactical belief is that the US will always be there, thick or thin, because the Israel Lobby (Jewish and Christian Evangelical alike) and the US military-industrial complex will always be there. Likud\u2019s bet has always worked in the past and they believe it will work in the future. Yes, Israel\u2019s violent extremism will cost Biden the support of America\u2019s young voters, but if so, that will just mean Trump\u2019s election in November, so even better for Likud.<\/p>\n

Likud\u2019s strategy relies entirely on the U.S. for Israel\u2019s security, as the sole blocking force in a world community that is increasingly united and aghast at Israel\u2019s massive war crimes, and in favor of imposing the two-state solution on an utterly recalcitrant Israel. Yet U.S. core interests\u2014economic, financial, commercial, diplomatic, and military\u2014are at odds with becoming isolated with Israel within the international system.<\/p>\n

The Israel lobby will be hit by a pincer movement. On the one side, American voters, especially young American voters, are aghast at Israel\u2019s brutality. On the other side, America\u2019s geopolitical position is crumbling. Shortly, many European countries, including Spain, Ireland, and Norway, are expected to recognize Palestine and welcome its U.N. membership. Erdan may end up at the top of the heap of the Likud party, but Likud and its extremist and violent partners in the coalition are likely soon to hit the limits of their arrogance, violence, and cruelty.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, is Director of Columbia\u2019s Center for Sustainable Development and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He has served as Special Adviser to three UN Secretaries-General [Kofi Annan (2001-7), Ban Ki-moon (2008-16), and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres. His books include <\/em>The End of Poverty<\/a>, Common Wealth<\/a>, The Age of Sustainable Development<\/a>, Building the New American Economy<\/a>, and most recently,<\/em> A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism<\/a>. Sachs was also an advisor to the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, as well as to the first president of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

14 May 2024 – Likud\u2019s tactical approach relies entirely on the U.S. for Israel\u2019s security, as the sole blocking force in a world community that is increasingly united and aghast at massive Israeli war crimes. How much longer can they carry on this way?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":216053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[1854,1199,87,865,1644,2395,88,715,2159,124,70,965],"class_list":["post-262460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide","tag-crimes-against-humanity","tag-ethnic-cleansing","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-international-court-of-justice-icj","tag-international-criminal-court-icc","tag-israel","tag-massacre","tag-rogue-states","tag-united-nations","tag-usa","tag-war-crimes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262460"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":262464,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262460\/revisions\/262464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}