As Israel's ambassador to the United Nations (UN), I have a front row seat to the world's foremost theater of the absurd. This fall, the UN will celebrate its 70thanniversary. In honor of New York's longest running production, I offer here a synopsis of the most recent drama and a special glimpse behind-the-scenes.
In Act I, the despots seized control of the General Assembly. The very nations undermining international peace were elected to the UN bodies responsible for maintaining global security.
In Act II, the world's most notorious human rights abusers commandeered the Human Rights Council. My stomach has churned as I have listened to the mass-murdering dictatorships that jail journalists and persecute political opponents cynically pontificate about the virtues of a free press and the sanctity of free and fair elections.
Now it seems we have arrived at the curtain call. The world's terrorists have been invited onstage and given a starring role.
On January 28 Hezbollah terrorists fired anti-tank missiles at an IDF vehicle in northern Israel, killing two Israeli soldiers, Yohai Kalangel and Dor Chaim Nini, and injuring seven others. Israeli forces responded and in the ensuing firefight, Francisco Javier Toledo, a Spanish peacekeeper from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), was tragically killed.
Within hours of the attack, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for killing the two IDF soldiers. Yet it took the Security Council a full week to release a statement regarding the event because Hezbollah, the terrorist group that plotted, perpetrated, and celebrated the murder of Israelis, was consulted on the text.
You read that right. This story is more cynical than an Oscar Wilde play and has more twists than a Dickens tale, but it is far from fiction. Following Hezbollah's January 28th attack, a flurry of backroom diplomacy ensued as a motley assortment of ruthless autocracies took turns tweaking the language of the text.
Last month, Iran's BFF -- that is, its best fanatical friend -- Venezuela, assumed a seat on the Security Council. And so the stage was set. Thanks to Tehran's backroom deals, Hezbollah - the same terrorist organization that has hijacked Lebanon on Iran's behalf for the better part of three decades - was knee-deep in Security Council affairs.
Any attempts by the voices of sanity and reason to intercede were swallowed up like Russian nesting dolls. Heated negotiations continued in UN corridors and overseas capitals as Hezbollah refused to consider any statement that mentioned its involvement in the January 28 attack. Mind you, it was simultaneously boasting that it was responsible for this same attack to its adherents.
Ultimately the Security Council handed Hezbollah a victory. When the statement was finally released, it condemned the killing of a UNIFIL Spanish peacekeeper with nary a mention of Hezbollah or the IDF soldiers.
And so here we are. The inmates have taken over the asylum. It wouldn't surprise me if the UN invited ISIS to sit on the Human Rights Council or asked North Korea to draft a motion on cyber security.
Next time I hazard a visit to the United Nations, I will have to check if Hezbollah's flag is flying alongside the 193 nations of the world. In the General Assembly, where nations are seated in alphabetical order, I will venture to see if Hezbollah has been given a coveted blue seat between the delegations of Haiti and Honduras.
And with great trepidation I will scan the halls of the UN to see if, in the tradition of all member states, Hezbollah has bequeathed a gift to the UN. Perhaps it will send one of its Iranian-made Fateh-110 long range missiles -- preferably not via air delivery.
Broadway may be down the street, but New York's longest-running tragedy is playing out at the United Nations. At the world's foremost theater of the absurd, the best we can hope for is a limited run.
Ron Prosor is Israel's ambassador to the United Nations.
