Israel’s UN ambassador along with his team wore yellow stars on their jackets, meant to emblemize the yellow stars Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust, during the Security Council assembly Monday.
Gilad Erdan denounced the council for its silence and said that he will continue to wear the badge until it condemns Hamas, the Daily Mail reports.
Israel had called for Secretary General Antonio Guterres to resign after he made statements that the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 “didn’t happen in a vacuum.”
The 15-member Security Council has been divided over the Israel-Hamas conflict and has not come to a single resolution on the matter.
When addressing the council, Erdan began, “Some of you have learned nothing in the past 80 years. Some of you have forgotten why this body was established.”
“So, I will remind you,” he continued. “From this day on, each time you look at me you will remember what staying silent in the face of evil means.”
As he stood up to place the star on his chest, he said: “Just like my grandparents, and the grandparents of millions of Jews, from now on my team and I will wear yellow stars.”
The star badges he and his team wore read 'Never Again.”
He said they will wear them as a “symbol of pride.”
“We will wear this star until you wake up and condemn the atrocities of Hamas,” he concluded.
The move, however, was frowned upon by Dani Dayan, the chairman of Israel’s Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem. Dayan wrote on X in the Hebrew language, according to the Daily Mail: “This act disgraces the victims of the Holocaust as well as the state of Israel. The yellow star symbolises the helplessness of the Jewish people and their being at the mercy of others. We now have an independent state and a strong army. We are the masters of our own fate. Today we will fasten to our lapel a blue and white flag, not a yellow star.”
This is not the first time Erdan has garnered attention for his tactics to make a stance at UN gatherings. In September, he was detained by UN security for protesting the Iranian president’s speech at the General Assembly by holding up a sign of the slain Mahsa Amini that read “IRANIAN WOMEN DESERVE FREEDOM NOW,” before abruptly exiting the hall.
