The United Nations is arguably one of the world’s most powerful public relations agencies, and through it, Israel has received a fairly steady diet of bad press.
But that may be changing, according to Dore Gold, Israel’s representative to the United Nations.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has been bestowing his official blessings on the Jewish state through public comment, Gold said, which could eventually have positive repercussions.
“It’s only a recent development,” Gold said over the weekend in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. “The Palestinians have always used the U.N. as a P.R. forum.”
Gold was in L.A. Saturday to give a keynote speech at the State of Israel Bonds Western Regional Dinner and the Menachem Begin Leadership Awards ceremony.
Three local residents — Ruby Goodman of San Francisco, Julie Harris of San Rafael and Marilyn Rude of Greenbrae — received awards.
“We have to separate the U.N. from the member states,” the Connecticut-born Gold said. “The voting patterns of the member states have always been bad. Dec. 14, 1993 — three months and one day after the Oslo accord — the U.N. passed a slew of anti-Israel resolutions on a vote of 155-1.”
But that hasn’t deterred Gold from pursuing a change of course. He insisted that, for the first time, Israel give the international agency a gift, as have other member states.
“The Saudis gave an ornate rug woven with gold thread,” he said. “The Egyptians gave Hammurabi’s Code. Until recently, Israel gave nothing.”
Gold presented the gift last week at a brief ceremony to commemorate Israel’s 50 years of membership at the United Nations. The item was a stone piece from the entryway of a fourth-century synagogue, inscribed with a menorah and a lulav. Made of a light-colored limestone, it is visible from 30 yards away.
“I made sure it is not in the basement of the U.N. like the other gifts are,” Gold said. It hangs in a walkway “that every diplomat who enters the U.N. chambers walks by every day. It is very noticeable.”
At the reception celebrating the gift, Annan “reminded us that the Jews were entrusted to be the light among nations,” Gold said. “That was a very powerful statement.”
Annan also bathed Israel in laudatory comments in his address to a crowd of 500 representing 115 countries at a dinner commemorating the membership anniversary.
And yet, “the member states still vote against us,” said Gold. “The Arab countries support the Muslim countries, who get the support of the Third World countries, and we are outnumbered.”
That equation “will be very hard to change,” he said.
Some have speculated that the turning political tide in Israel will sweep Gold out of office. If he is preparing for a midlife career change, he isn’t letting on.
“I am subservient to civil service of the state of Israel, and I am not subject to the personal influence of any particular person,” he said. “It’s too early to predict what impact a coalition government will have. We’ll have to see what kind of a coalition.”
During his tenure at the United Nations, Gold has doggedly persevered with his government’s agenda, lobbying European members to abandon their allegiance to U.N. Resolution 181 — also known as the “partition plan.” Passed in 1947, it called for the division of the British Mandate of Palestine into two states, with Jerusalem an internationalized city.
The Jewish portion comprised nearly 60 percent of the region, and included most of the Negev Desert. The Arab state would have comprised the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and a stretch north of Israel. Although the Palestinian leadership rejected the resolution in 1947, “they are suddenly interested in it again,” Gold said. “They want to use it to base their claim of statehood upon. But in addition, Palestine is now saying territorial claims should be based upon it as well, extending beyond the West Bank and Gaza to western Galilee and the Jerusalem corridor.
After Israel’s War of Independence, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion announced in the U.N. chambers that Resolution 181 had been rendered “null and void.”
Said Gold, “We have a chance to achieve real peace in the Middle East, but we have to be very firm about getting them to abandon Resolution 181. We have to be in the same sandbox before we can make a deal. That’s why our work is so important. Resolution 181 should be left in the diplomatic archives.”
Born in 1954, Gold immigrated to Israel in 1980, working first at the Dayan Centre for Near East Studies of the University of Tel Aviv. He has since ascended to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inner circle, and some political watchers say it is unlikely he will survive Netanyahu’s departure.
The recent election has not shaken Gold’s faith in Netanyahu’s agenda.
In November, Gold told a CNN reporter that “what we’re looking for is clear, Palestinian compliance.”
“The accountability is the accountability of the Palestinian Authority,” he said. “If they do their end of the bargain, we do our end of the bargain. We’re giving up something tangible — land. We need something tangible in return, and that’s fighting terrorism. If they do it, we do it.”