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N<\/span><\/span>EW YORK \u2013 Outgoing Ambassador to the UN Gabriella Shalev told American journalists on Monday that Israel is \u201cthe most isolated, lonely country in the world,\u201d and that the biggest threat to its existence is not Iranian nuclear proliferation, but international attempts to delegitimize it.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \u201dShalev cited Iran and tensions with the Palestinians as other significant problems, but particularly highlighted the international community\u2019s actions toward Israel as being potentially detrimental to the country\u2019s future.<\/p>\n She specifically cited European court prosecutions of Israeli officials for alleged human rights offenses and UN efforts to single out Israeli conduct for reprimand.<\/p>\n Shalev said that as sanctions resolutions at the UN put international pressure on Iran, Israel\u2019s biggest threat is now those who question the Jewish state\u2019s right to exist and defend itself, the\u00a0Washington Times reported.<\/p>\n Israel Project president Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi told\u00a0The Jerusalem Post she felt Shalev\u2019s remarks had been on point.<\/p>\n \u201cIran has been the No. 1 issue in the pro-Israel community for many years, but right now there is something of a sigh of relief that the world has come to a deeper understanding that Iran is not just Israel\u2019s threat, it is the world\u2019s threat,\u201d Mizrahi said, citing sanction developments in the US, UN and Europe.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat [Shalev] was saying was that everyone at the UN in theory supports Israel\u2019s right to defend itself, but when it\u2019s actualized, they stop supporting it in many cases,\u201d Mizrahi said, citing the May 31 Gaza flotilla incident as an example.<\/p>\n \u201cI think [Shalev] is right.<\/p>\n I think that this is a major problem, and we\u2019re deeply, deeply concerned about it.\u201d<\/p>\n In terms of the United Nations, UN Watch director Hillel Neuer told the\u00a0Post from Geneva that \u201cAmbassador Shalev is exactly right. While the UN was founded on the highest ideals, many of its influential assemblies have turned into Ground Zero for \u2018lawfare\u2019 \u2013 the Arab-led assault on Israel using international law to weaken its legitimacy and international standing.\u201d<\/p>\n Efforts to utilize international law as a blunt instrument against Israel, Neuer said, are particularly evident in the context of the Human Rights Council, a UN body based in Geneva.<\/p>\n \u201cOut of some 40 resolutions adopted since 2006, more than 70 percent target Israel, while granting impunity to Hamas terror,\u201d Neuer said of the Human Rights Council. \u201cVictims of abuses worldwide are ignored. The [HRC] currently has multiple inquiries under way against democratic Israel, yet none on massacres committed by gross violators like China, Iran, Sudan, or Kyrgyzstan.<\/p>\n <\/span>Eleanor Roosevelt<\/span><\/a> and Ren\u00e9 Cassin, the proud Zionists who created the UN\u2019s human rights system in response to the atrocities of World War II, are surely turning in their graves.\u201d<\/p>\n Responding to these remarks, a spokesperson for the UN Secretary General\u2019s office said on Tuesday that \u201cIsrael is a member in good standing of the United Nations, which has repeatedly stressed the rights of the Israeli people, as has Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Israel\u2019s rights as a member state have been established repeatedly, including through General Assembly and Security Council resolutions.\u201d<\/p>\n At a departing reception held for Shalev last week in New York by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, <\/span>Susan Rice<\/span><\/a>, the US ambassador to the UN, praised her efforts at the world body. Rice told attendees that she would \u201ccontinue US efforts to combat all international attempts to challenge the legitimacy of Israel \u2013 including and especially at the United Nations.\u201d<\/p>\n Mizrahi pointed out that at Monday\u2019s luncheon, Shalev\u2019s remarks were not made in a despairing tone.<\/span><\/p>\n
Shalev told an <\/span>Israel Project<\/span><\/a> luncheon in Washington that threats to Israel\u2019s right to defend itself constitute the \u201cfirst challenge\u201d of the Jewish state, according to\u00a0The Washington Times.<\/p>\n