Sarah Weiss Ma’udi, the Israel Mission to the United Nations legal advisor, responded to allegations of Israeli apartheid by stating in a speech that the “conflict has nothing to do with race.”
Ma’udi was responding to comments from the Palestinian representative in a November 16 speech to the UN. She said that she has spent time with her children in bomb shelters to shield them from rocket fire, has five nieces who live near the Israel-Gaza Strip border, and has lost friends and relatives to terror attacks. She also argued that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can’t be solved “in the courtroom with vexatious or frivolous litigation.”
“You can lash false accusations at my country and cynically appropriate loaded terminology borrowed from important historic and current racial justice movements,” Ma’udi said, “and you can mock, as someone who themselves has never been a victim of antisemitism, and cheaply dismisses our pain. Or insinuate that we are not human or don’t act humanly, using actually classic antisemitic tropes that the speaker himself clearly has little understanding of. But we all know full well that our conflict has nothing to do with race and everything to do with messy, complicated, conflicting claims––legal and otherwise–– that we will only be able to solve together as partners at the negotiating table.”
Must see: Watch as our Legal Adviser, Sarah Weiss Ma'udi, responds in the General Assembly to false Palestinian accusations of barbarity, colonialism, and apartheid. pic.twitter.com/LTmgBnfiqq
— Israel at the UN (@IsraelinUN) November 16, 2021
The Simon Wiesenthal Center praised Ma’udi’s speech in a tweet as speaking “truth to power.”
Truth to power. G-d Bless Sarah Weiss, truth teller at the @UN https://t.co/hHtjylUsI5
— SimonWiesenthalCntr (@simonwiesenthal) November 17, 2021
Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt, who is currently nominated to serve as the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, tweeted that Ma’udi’s speech was “a powerful less than two minute take down of those who use antisemitic tropes for political purposes. Feel as you may about the Middle East situation, antisemitism has no place in it.”
A powerful less than two minute take down of those who use antisemitic tropes for political purposes. Feel as you may about the Middle East situation, antisemitism has no place in it. @israelUN #antisemitism #EnoughIsEnough https://t.co/79AwOmvlME
— Deborah E. Lipstadt (@deborahlipstadt) November 16, 2021
Eugene Kontorovich, George Mason University Law Professor and head of the Kohelet Policy Forum’s International Law Department, had a differing take. “This is why Israel loses in public diplomacy,” he tweeted. “Palestinian: IT IS OURS! ALL OURS! YOU STOLE IT! Israeli: ‘Actually, we just have conflicting claims. We should just sit down and work it out.’ How can Israeli diplomat speak at UN without saying Israel’s claims are the right ones?”
This is why Israel looses in public diplomacy. Palestinian: IT IS OURS! ALL OURS! YOU STOLE IT! Israeli: "Actually, we just have conflicting claims. We should just sit down and work it out." How can Israeli diplomat speak at UN without saying Israel's claims are the right ones? https://t.co/BTCZaKGa2Y
— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) November 17, 2021
