Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein issued the following statement:

The ZOA praises the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, for denouncing anti-Israel bias at the United Nations, particularly at the UN Human Rights Council, during the Ambassador’s address to Model UN participants at a school in Israel on Monday (February 15).   Ambassador Power noted that “Israel is just not treated like other countries,” and that UN members single out Israel for criticism.  Ambassador Power cited the UN’s rejection of Israeli rescue organization ZAKA as an example of the UN’s members singling out Israel for criticism.

After three years of rejecting ZAKA, the UN’s Nongovernmental Organization Committee finally granted ZAKA the status of consultant NGO to the United Nations last month (January 2016).  Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon explained that Ambassador Power had assisted the Israeli delegation’s efforts to finally achieve official consultant status.  ZOA also praises Ambassador Power’s for assisting with this important effort.

[However, it was inappropriate for Ambassador Power to state to the students participating in the Model UN in Israel that she hoped that they would soon be able to sit behind a “Palestine placard.”  Palestinian Arab leaders have clearly rejected achieving peace with Israel: During a press conference in Japan the same day as Ambassador Power’s address, Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki stated: “We will never go back and sit again in a direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.”   Instead, the Palestinian Authority’s leaders continue to incite knife, shooting and car ramming attacks against innocent Israelis.  A Palestinian state would make this situation worse, and would become another Gaza-style launching pad for rocket attacks against all of Israel.]