Sa'ar: Israel will not base existential decisions on a UN majority

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said Israel cannot base decisions about its existential interests on the majority view at the United Nations, speaking to The Jerusalem Post during the 81st UN General Assembly in New York.

Sa'ar acknowledged that Israel is currently in a diplomatic minority at the UN, but rejected the idea of a broad international "consensus" against it. "We were in the minority a year ago. We were in the minority two years ago, ten years ago, twenty years ago, and forty years ago," he said.

The opening days of the General Assembly saw several world leaders devote significant parts of their speeches to criticism of Israeli policy in Gaza and the West Bank. On Wednesday the US delegation walked out during Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian's address, in which he accused Israel and the United States of terrorism; a day earlier most of the Iranian delegation had left during President Donald Trump's speech.

Sa'ar pointed to the Oslo Accords, the creation of the Palestinian Authority and Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza as far-reaching steps that, in his view, did not produce lasting diplomatic credit. Critics of Israeli policy argue the opposite: that current military and settlement policies, not past concessions, explain the country's isolation. GOD News reports both positions; the diplomatic debate continues through the end of the General Debate on September 28.