Former Israeli envoy lifts lid on life at United Nations

Israel’s former ambassador to the UK, Ron Prosor, lifted a corner of the curtain at the United Nations in his presentation to Limmud FSU Europe in Windsor.

Prosor, who represented Israel at the United Nations until 2015, now holds the Abba Eban chair of international diplomacy at IDC Herzliya, the major Israeli strategic and political think tank.

To a crowded lecture room, the diplomat revealed he had spent time at the United Nations in New York both cajoling and entertaining the most reluctant of ambassadors.

He managed to woo them with stunts such as bringing the popular Israeli singer, Rita, to perform at the General Assembly in Farsi and Hebrew and simply made them laugh — for example, suggesting that tunnels were being dug in Gaza for a future new
metro system.

But Prosor insisted that the jokes had a serious purpose, and that he had had below-the-radar feedback from numerous Arab countries at the UN.

And he warned: “We need to maintain Israel as a bipartisan issue in the United States.

“It is as important to seek ties with Democrats as it is to keep the ties we have built up with Republicans.”