Israel envoy removes hostage pin at General Assembly on Holocaust Remembrance Day

The Israeli ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, accuses the UN of fueling antisemitism and wins applause for the IDF during a speech at the General Assembly marking Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“The time for talk is over. The time for action is now. In recent years, we have heard many warnings from this podium about the rise in antisemitism, about dangerous lies, about how hatred begins with language,” Danon says. “Those warnings are right, but they ring hollow when the lies that fuel antisemitism are allowed to spread, including here in this building, in the UN.

Danon says that “when false narratives are repeated in this chamber, they do not stay here, they spread across the world with the rubber stamp of the UN. They harden into belief, they turn into hatred.”

He cites accusations of genocide against Israel as well as Tom Fletcher, the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, issuing an unfounded accusation last year that 14,000 babies were going to die immediately in Gaza.

“Hatred does not spread on its own, it is enabled, it is legitimized, it is given authority, especially over the last two years. This institution, the UN has failed that test,” he says.

Danon connects the Nazi genocide to Hamas’s hatred of Jews.

“Hamas comes with the same hatred and the same intent as the Nazis — to murder Jews,” he says. “But unlike 1941, today, there is a different reality. We crashed and stopped Hamas’s terror machine.”

Danon heralds the recovery yesterday of Ran Gvili’s body, the last remaining hostage in Gaza.

“We brought home every hostage. Every single one of them. We waited 843 days. Today, the pin finally comes off,” he says, removing the yellow hostage pin from his lapel and placing it in his pocket, to applause.

“We have shown that the Jewish people are no longer defenseless. Today, we have our own army — the soldiers of the IDF,” he says to applause. “They are the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and of the founders of our nation, now standing proud to ensure Jewish survival.”

“Too many in this building have buckled under the pressure of biased media, false propaganda and antisemitic campaigns,” he adds. “Do not repeat that failure, do not surrender moral clarity for political gain, do not wait until words turn into blood. Never again demands action, not tomorrow, not in a year. Never again is now.”