Danon to 'Post': UN Quietly Admires Israel, but Publicly Bashes It

"Two months after taking office as ambassador to the UN, former minister of science, technology and space Danny Danon seems to have found his bearings...When asked about his first impressions on the job, Danon said there is 'a public UN and a quiet UN.'

'During the day, I have many meetings with ambassadors and officials and quietly you see that there is a lot of appreciation, I would even say admiration for Israel,' he explained.

However, he said, publicly, the UN exhibits a strong anti-Israel bias.

'There are many countries whose sole mission at the UN is to bash Israel,' he said. 'We are fighting against hundreds of people who wake up in the morning and think: What can we do to bash Israel at the UN?' Danon added that he found the Jewish state to always be at the center of discussions and that most reports coming out of the international body, regardless of the issue they relate to, contain a section about Israel...

'When you look at the UN the way it was built 70 years ago, it was with good intentions, but the strong democracies are not in charge in the UN and there is a majority of small countries, most of them are not democratic, who have the control.'...

As the conflict with the Palestinians has been put on center stage both at the General Assembly and especially at the Security Council, which held several sessions on the issue in recent weeks, Danon called on Israel's allies and 'those who want to get involved' to stop supporting Palestinians in these forums.

'The more easy victories they will have in the UN, the harder it will be to promote the negotiations,' he said. 'For example, they had a celebration about raising their flag here. So what? It's not helping the lives of the Palestinians and I think it's actually creating the opposite [result].'..."