Cabinet approves Erdan as UN and US ambassador
The cabinet voted to send Likud minister Gilad Erdan to be Israel’s ambassador to the UN and the US in Sunday’s meeting.
Erdan will begin in his UN role in the coming weeks and will replace Ambassador Ron Dermer in Washington after the November presidential election. The cabinet extended Dermer’s posting on Sunday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Erdan and his experience in a variety of ministerial roles, including Public Security Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister.
“These are roles that certainly showed you the challenges Israel faces around the world,” Netanyahu said. “You have more than once expressed your confidence that you can represent the state of Israel powerfully, with the necessary assertiveness and the arguments needed in these areas. I think the work you did against BDS gives you the energy and the experience for these actions.”
Netanyahu added that the US and UN are “undoubtedly the most important international arenas” for Israel and said the cabinet has high hopes for his work there.
Erdan, who had been a minister for the past 11 years and an MK for six years before that, said: “I am going to represent Israel with great pride. There is no other country like ours in the world.”
He added that Iran’s nuclear aspirations and defending Israel’s “right to apply sovereignty in the homeland of our fathers” will be a major part of his job.
The new ambassador said that with coronavirus hitting Israel and Jewish communities abroad, “we should show our mutual responsibility and solidarity with our brothers and sisters here in Israel and in the world.”
Erdan also said he sees “the fight against antisemitism and hate as a central part of my mission in the UN and the US... fighting hate of Jews and of Israel, the old antisemitism and the new antisemitism.”
Erdan will be the first person to be ambassador to both the US and the UN since Abba Eban in 1950-1959.
Likud MK Ofir Akunis replaced Erdan as Regional Cooperation Minister.
Erdan and Settlements Minister Tzipi Hotovely, who is expected to be appointed ambassador to the United Kingdom in the coming weeks, were offered the ambassadorships because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had fewer ministerial portfolios to give senior Likud MKs in the current unity government than in the last Likud-led one.