By, Naomi Firsht
2 min read
ByNaomi Firsht, Naomi Firsht
Former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor has expressed his frustration against what he regards as the UN’s bias against Israel.
Mr Prosor, who is also a former Israeli ambassador to the UK, said that at the UN security council, “it is unbelievable the proportion [of debates] that one deals with Israel “
He said that when UN facilities had been attacked in Arab countries, no condemnation had been forthcoming from the organisation.
“The bias is very, very hard to fathom,” he said, adding that “something is wrong in the way Israel and Jews are singled out,” at the UN and in the media.
Mr Prosor joked: “In the Security Council they said ‘after 10 months we could not establish what is the reason that the Palestinians are building the tunnels [in Gaza]’. I stood up and said I have an idea - maybe they wanted to build a metro system.”
The former ambassador, who was in conversation with former Sky diplomatic editor Tim Marshall at the annual dinner of Israel research group Bicom on Thursday, paid tribute to Lord Weidenfeld, who had died the day before, aged 96.
Mr Prosor told the 350 guests at the Lancaster Hotel in central London that the peer had been a “personal mentor” to him.
Lord Weidenfeld “was able to live as a proud Jew outside of Israel and embodied, to my mind, everything which is so Jewish and so Israeli in one person,” he said.
Mr Marshall asked Mr Prosor, who now holds a senior post at the Interdisciplinary Centre research college in Herzliyah in Israel, if he thought the rise of Daesh in the Middle East had helped win Israel more understanding among the general public.
Mr Prosor said: “Yes, but it’s going to be gradual and slower than I had hoped.
“I don’t think there is a real understanding in the Western media of what goes on in the Middle-East.”
As the pair discussed bias against Israel in the media, Mr Marshall explained why some reports on Gaza lacked context.
He said: “Trust me, sometimes it’s because reporters are too busy, sometimes because they’re too stupid, but rarely is it that they want to portray a certain thing and they are doing it knowingly.
“Sometimes it’s a lack of information and also people don’t care about your subject. You think it is the most important subject in the world, but it is not.”
New Bicom chief executive James Sorene thanked Mr Prosor for giving him his first job at the Israeli embassy when he was 23 years old.
Mr Sorene said: “In this country there is a loud campaign to delegitimise Israel. Despite everything happening in the Middle East right now they insist that the most important issue is Israel. That Israel is the real villain. That Israel should be labelled as a criminal, to be sanctioned and boycotted. This is a battle of ideas.”
He pledged to expand Bicom’s services in 2016. to take even more journalist delegations to Israel and increase the number of activists for Bicom’s We Believe in Israel campaign - activists to 20,000.
