OLAMI Impact Accelerator Danon Speech

thank you very much my dear friend Paul for that introduction coming from the UN I'm not used to such a warm introduction actually at the UN I'm used to be the only Jewish ambassador you we have so many Jewish ambassadors I want to say my dear friend I want Wolfson and the great team of Allah me for putting up this amazing Shabbat amazing initiative tonight we we will speak about being a Jewish ambassador because tonight you all all of you are starting to become Jewish ambassadors when I'm at the UN and I see the lies against Israel the way they speak about is the obsession we have every three months I debated the Security Council they call it the Middle East debate but when it is in the UN they don't speak about Syria Yemen Lebanon when they say Middle East it's only about Israel and they come with ridiculous resolutions trying to deny our connection to Jerusalem our connection to Eretz Israel and I stand sometimes by myself and I tell them the facts and I share with them the true story of our beautiful country Israel and tonight my message to you that we are winning we are winning [Applause] we're winning even in a hostile place like the UN and between us I will show you the secrets how we are winning in the UN so first of all we need to believe we need to believe and today that's what I did when I decided to run for a position at the UN for for a position of the chairman of the legal committee we have six committees at the UN like the Knesset like every Parliament and I decided to run for a position my colleagues in Jerusalem called me to return your Meshuga you are insane we don't run at the UN and you and we keep it quiet I tell them why we paying our dues we are a member state and I decided to run for this position the great democracies of Syria Yemen Libya they all ganged to try to block my nomination the blamed the spread lies against me against Israel and then we went to vote in the General Assembly we have 193 countries in the UN it was secret ballot with a lot of tension everybody showed up even small countries before the vote they had a meeting of all the Muslim countries anyone knows how many Muslim countries we have at the UN you say that but number-wise 56 that's a lot they have an organization it's called oh I see organisation of Islamic countries and before every crucial vote they get together to decide how to vote when they call a meeting I call a meeting of all the Jewish countries and the UN I sit by myself and I decide how to vote and on that meaning that he started to vote against Israel but when we went into the General Assembly and we counted the votes we receive the support of 109 member states and only 44 voted against us and I became the first Israeli ever to chair a UN Committee now I know some of you are very good in numbers 44 voted against Israel but you have 56 Muslim countries so still today they are looking for the dozen ambassadors who voted with Israel and it shows we chose the gap between the public UN and the private UN publicly they would not be nice to us but privately it's not the same and frankly speaking because when I look at you you know it reminds me when I started to be active about Jewish life in public life you know I served in the Knesset for many years and in Israeli Parliament and I think in every political place you will go publicly people would say good things about you but behind closed doors it's not always the same when I came to the UN it was exactly the opposite I always spoke against these well but when privately I will meet Muslim ambassadors the like Israel they appreciate Israel they admire Israel so our challenge is to close that gap and to convince them to publicly say what they actually sing a few months ago together with your formal ambassador to the UN ambassador nikki Haley yes she deserved it [Applause] we took the initiative again we put in the General Assembly a resolution to condemn Hamas the thirst organization [Applause] usually you don't do that in the General Assembly you don't take the initiative and we worked on that resolution and we received the support of 87 member states who support this resolution and 57 voted against us so it shows that when when you believe and you take the initiative you can win even in the UN now the question is how to do that how to win and now I'm sharing with you the secret so pay attention first you have to be proud in your Judaism when I walked first time into the Security Council I put my kippa the same kippa and I read for my Tehillim and at the end of my speech a Muslim ambassador approached me he told me ambassador Odan on i'm really tired from hearing the Israelis the Palestinians I don't care but the fact you you read from your holy book I want to sit down with you I want to hear what you have to say because you respect your religion [Applause] the second thing we did we demanded that young people would be recognized as an official holiday in the UN the same way they recognized Christmas or Adele fetal we demanded that young people be recognized and we got the UN to recognize young people and I think it's appropriate that they will have a day to repent to do chuva the third thing is when I went with my advisor to the cafeteria and I thought they have halal food and I asked why we don't have kosher food mr. Wolfson how and you can come we have great sandwiches in the cafeteria I went to meet the vice president of the General Assembly and we are a large meeting about kosher food in the UN he was afraid that we were gonna sue him we'll call the Commissioner will bring everybody and he told me mr. de nonne we have a plan we have a budget in five years we will build a kosher kitchen in the UN so I told him it was from Japan Tony mr. Takei so I don't want you to build a kosher kitchen do you have a kosher kitchen you need a monkey ass and she Canada is the Faraday you know it's too much politics I told him just bring kosher food and we gave him a list and it shows one of the caterer and we got kosher food at the UN [Applause] when we have Jewish holidays we invite the ambassador's to participate so we have a settle in the UN and almost 80 UN ambassadors participated in the federal to get my three children to sit down for three hours it's challenging you should see the ambassador's of Ukraine Turkey Poland Hungary African ambassadors for them it's magic to actually understand what is the story of Passover our connection to our land so every ala day we will have an event and last September we even had a touchless service and it's very convenient because we have actually have the East River so we had attached this service with the secretary-general where we explain them what we are doing before the holidays so when you bring Judaism and you believe in what you do it gives you a lot of strength it gives you a lot of courage and I encourage you tonight to do the same you will be standing by yourself it will be in your campus to be in the street you need to believe in what you are doing so when you are proud of your Judaism you can win but that's not enough the second thing is Israel you would bring Israel into the table and I bring Israel into the UN we bring our technology innovation and the best way to convince people about the beauty of it well you know what is a secret any ideas food is good is to bring them to Israel that's and I came back two days ago I led a delegation of 40 UN ambassadors we went first to Poland to visit the death camps and then we went to Jerusalem and once you bring them you don't need to convince them they see it they feel it they feel the holiness of Jerusalem when you walk in the in City of David they get connected to their roots as Christians so that is the best way to convince people is to convince them to come to Israel and last week when we took the ambass up north to show them the Tanners of Hezbollah you should have seen their faces because when I speak about Iran about promoting terrorism it's only words and numbers but when you actually see the tunnels penetrating from Lebanon into Israel they will never forget those pictures and I want to recall the visit of ambassador Halley which I had the honor to accompany it were the first time in Israel and we took a military helicopter and we showed her everything from south to north when the border would gather to the hormone and every time we told her Nicky look over there that's the border with Egypt that's the border with Jordan and after a while she told me Danny enough you don't need to show me the border I can see wherever it's green it's Israel wherever it's gray it's not as well [Applause] we can be very loud and in what we achieved together and we did it together but we have a lot of challenges ahead of us and that's why I call you to take the leadership and if you are here now you have already leaders so now you have to share that responsibility to speak up sometimes it will not be easy but we know that we believe in what we are doing so I know that today when you leave this conference you will be encouraged you will have the spirit but you also when you'll be by yourself standing by yourself you should have the same amount of energy that you have here tonight because when I stand at the UN I know that I'm not alone I know that I represent not only the people in Israel but in the Jewish people all around the world and you a lot ambassadors are doing the same every day when I walk into the UN I see all the flags 193 Flags many of them with the cause many of them with a crescent but only one flag with a magenta width with the Star of David [Applause] we should remember that we should protect our heritage and our future together many years ago Prime Minister Netanyahu was the ambassador to the UN and he went to visit the lubavitcher rebbe and the Rebbe told him and I quote you are about to enter a house of lies just remember that in that dark place if you like just one small candle of truth everyone would see it tonight I call upon you the young people in this room the Jewish ambassadors of tomorrow to light those candles of truth for all to see am i cyanide thank you very much [Applause]