At the end of October 2023, a video allegedly filmed at the UN went viral - an Israeli diplomat shows a stone and explains why his country is at war with the Palestinians. We decided to check whether what was happening in the video was real.
The video, which lasts just under a minute, shows an Israeli diplomat participating in a UN Security Council meeting placing a stone on the table and making a speech. The viral posts claim that this is his way of explaining why Israel is “killing women and children.” “It's because of the stone. They throw these stones at us every day. What would you do?" - this is the quote given by the authors of the publications.
Similar posts appeared, in particular, in many Telegram channels: “Live broadcast"(693,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Ax Live"(315,000), Colonelcassad (263,000), "Russia now"(261,000), "Truthfulness"(201,000), "Putin on Telegram"(175,000), Voblya (161,000), "Rosich | Rosich" (143,000), "Army / News"(139,000), "Bloodseeker 2.0"(138,000), "Sheikh Tamir"(122,000), etc. Similar publications were posted in other social networks, on entertainment websites, blogging platforms And forums.
The video actually shows Israel's permanent representative to the UN, Gilad Erdan, takes this position since summer 2020. However, in a video filmed in the UN Security Council meeting room, the diplomat wears a mask and is separated from his neighbors at the round table by transparent screens, although anti-Covid restrictions are now in place at the organization's headquarters in New York don't work.
Moreover, if you listen to the diplomat’s speech in English, it does not contain the phrase that is attributed to him in viral posts. Searches for the exact quote from Erdan's speech yielded no results. A search by the name of Israel's permanent representative to the UN and individual words from his speech leads to media sites, in particular The Jerusalem Post And The Times of Israel. However, this is not recent news - all mentions of Erdan with the stone date back to January 2022.
The Jerusalem Post reports details of what happened: speaking at a meeting of the UN Security Council on January 19, 2022, dedicated to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Erdan said that this body pays little attention to Palestinian violence against Israelis.
“Rocks can kill. A terrorist is not only a person with a weapon. A terrorist is not just a man with a bomb. Such stones are thrown at Israelis, their cars and buses. They are thrown at Israeli men and women, at Israeli babies and teenagers. Every single day. But the world doesn't mind. Would you consider it a terrorist attack if such a stone was thrown at your car while you were driving with your child? Could you at least condemn these brutal terrorist attacks carried out by Palestinians against Israeli civilians?”
The official UN website has complete transcripts all meetings of the Security Council. On January 19, 2022, a meeting was indeed held to discuss the situation in the Middle East. In this document you can find both a quote from the video and Erdan's full speech.
“A year ago, I expressed hope that the Council's discussions on the Middle East would become more balanced and reflect the real threats to peace and stability in the region. However, today I am unfortunately forced to express this desire again. <...> Terrorist attacks with stones - not small ones, but the kind that are thrown at Israelis in their cars and buses. Every day, stones are thrown at Israeli men and women, Israeli babies and children. In 2021 alone, Israelis have suffered 1,775 rock attacks from Palestinian terrorists, but the world is saying nothing. Would Council members consider it an act of terrorism if a rock was thrown at their car while they were driving with their children? It was this attack that claimed the life of a four-year-old Adele Beaton and others. What would the representatives of the countries that are here do? Will they at least condemn the brutal terrorist attacks carried out by Palestinians against Israeli civilians?
The diplomat did not make any threats or promises that in response to throwing stones at its citizens, Israel would bomb the Gaza Strip.
Thus, the video being circulated on social networks is genuine, but has nothing to do with the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, followed by airstrikes by the Israeli army in response and ongoing shelling by militants. Gilad Erdan showed the stone at the UN during a speech almost two years earlier and said nothing about how Palestinians throwing such stones at Israelis was a reason for “the killing of thousands of women and children.”
Cover image: Hamodia
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