Ron Prosor serves as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. Before that, he was Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom. Earlier this month, he was in Toronto as a guest of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and UJA Federation of Greater Toronto to provide briefings to Jewish community leaders as well as members of the media. He sat down to talk to The CJN.

Your colleague, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, is credited with helping arrange Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent address to the U.S. Congress. Did you have a role to play in that?

I’d like to focus on the fact that the important thing is what Prime Minister Netanyahu said about the Iranian issue. Let’s zoom out for a second. What do you see? Today, Iran without nuclear weapons is taking over Yemen, through the Houthis. They are in Iraq, in Syria and in Lebanon.

The regime in Tehran is helping Syrian President Bashar Assad, the only ophthalmologist that I know who is cutting the vision of his people every day.

We see Iran, without nuclear weapons, conducting terror. We see Iran’s record on human rights – hanging gays, stoning women – an appalling record on human rights. If you see their behaviour without nuclear weapons and a delivery system, just think how it will affect the whole region with nuclear weapons.

It’s not just a problem for Israel. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others in the region clearly want to defend themselves. It’s going to change the whole strategic environment in the Middle East.

They control the Strait of Hormuz and Bab-el-Mandeb [two choke points through which Middle Eastern oil flows to world markets], so it is absolutely important that the issue of Iran is on the table.

What has been the fallout from Netanyahu’s speech?

It’s not just Israel. Other countries are affected. You see a bit of it coming out in the Arab world, which is important.

Al Arabiya, the Saudi newspaper, came out with the stance to listen to what Israel is saying about the situation. Under the radar, in the Gulf, they’re worried. You can understand their worries. They’re on the front line.

The idea of focusing only on Israel’s concerns is very narrow. The Arab world is quite united about a nuclear Iran.

Iran is radical Islam with a connection to nuclear weapons. It’s a huge threat to world peace.

You recently sent a letter to the United Nations with Israel’s concerns about Iran’s role in arming Hamas and Hezbollah. Do you expect that to lead to anything?

Iran is not just sending weapons, missiles and money. Iran is arming Hezbollah. An Iranian general was found strolling near the Israeli-Syrian border.

Iran has created with Hezbollah a situation that Hezbollah has nearly 100,000 rockets, more than most NATO powers.

They give money to Assad and money and missiles to Hezbollah. Hezbollah is actively involved with Assad in butchering his own population.

Hamas has been testing rockets lately, shooting them into the Mediterranean Sea, so they are re-arming and trying to put longer ranges on those missiles.

They are taking cement that is supposed to be used for hospitals and schools and using it to rebuild terror tunnels.

We see repetition every day of the leaders speaking of the liquidation of Israel.

There was an operation in Gaza, Operation Protective Edge, and the idea was to stop missiles launched against Israeli civilians.

Hamas agreed to reconstruct Gaza. They’re using the money, the cement, to build tunnels and reinvigorate the rockets.

We tell the UN so in the future they won’t say they didn’t know. The same thing in the north. That’s crucial. Under UN Resolution 1701, you have UNIFIL to make sure Hezbollah does not introduce new weapons in the buffer zone. And we see them breaking those agreements every day.

The UN is about to receive a report about last summer’s war with Hamas. Will the departure of commission chair William Schabas, who resigned after it was revealed he had given a legal opinion to the PLO, make a difference to the report’s findings? Do you expect it to be fair to Israel?

We have a situation where Israel from the start said this chairman, this committee, is biased. The former chairman is on the record saying his dream is to have [former Israeli prime minister and president] Shimon Peres and Bibi Netanyahu come to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

He resigned because it’s obvious he’s on the payroll of the PLO. It means the whole process from Israel’s point of view is flawed.

We feel the commission of inquiry should be revoked.

U.S. officials say that under the current administration, the number of anti-Israel resolutions at the UN have gone down. Can you comment?

The United States, every day, stands with Israel in a different part of the UN, the Security Council, committees.

There is a triple standard versus Israel. There’s one standard for democracies, another for dictatorships and another for Israel. The UN Human Rights Council has Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Qatar on it. It’s like having Jack the Ripper run Scotland Yard.

The council’s permanent agenda item 4 deals with human rights violations all over the world, and there’s a special agenda item, No. 7, for every meeting that singles out Israel, the only country in the world singled out.

How difficult is it for you on a personal level to deal with this constant attack?

I walk the corridors of the UN tall and proud, knowing who I represent. Israel has nothing to be ashamed of.

Part of my strategy is to present what Israel is all about, apart from the conflict, such as sustainable development. I’ve introduced resolutions on entrepreneurship for development. One hundred and forty one countries raised their hands for an Israeli resolution, while the Arabs did everything they could to fight this resolution. It’s part of their delegitimization and demonization of Israel.

But representatives of African countries said that while they don’t agree with Israel politically, they said that what Israel is doing is absolutely amazing.

Another example, from the cultural side, was bringing in Rita, an Israeli diva, to sing in Farsi and Hebrew two years ago. One hundred and twenty-two countries were in the General Assembly hall, including the Secretary General, who opened the event.

Has all this made a difference at the UN?

At the UN, it’s like Economics 101 with a demand and supply curves and the equilibrium. In the UN there’s a demand for demonization of Israel but there’s also demand for Israeli know-how. We’re trying to introduce that, to get to the point of equilibrium.

You often appear on campuses to speak to Jewish students How can Jewish students stand up to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement and pro-Palestinian groups?

There is not a campus from Cardiff to Edinburgh where I was not received by denunciations on the outside and hecklers inside. At the University of Edinburgh, someone ran at me.

I speak truth to people who one day will be future leaders. I tell them that on the Israeli Supreme Court we have an Israeli Arab. We have ambassadors around the world who are Arab and Druze. That women are in the judiciary. That all the banks today are headed by women.

Israel is a flourishing democracy.

Some don’t know this. For some, it doesn’t make a difference. From my point of view, success is having someone who listens to you, who question their positions, who asks more questions, and who questions their own suppositions.

Do you think people are coming to appreciate the kinds of challenges Israel is facing?

Israel is on the front line encountering phenomena that western democracies have yet to encounter. 

We are trying to defend our citizens on the one hand and not go overboard on the other. Twenty-five years ago, we checked people at airports. People said it was an invasion of privacy, a violation of human rights.

Instead of pointing fingers, the world should embrace us, give us a hug, because we are on the front lines.