This Week
V.N. Confidential
An articulate businessman leads Israers delegation to the United Nations.
RACHEL POMERANCE
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
New York City
picture of polish. "I've always believed in personal
diplomacy."
In fact, Gillerman has used his business and
political connections to advance Israel's interests in
the past, often running ahead of the political eche-
lon.
He led an Israeli delegation to China to discuss
trade a year and a half before the two countries
established diplomatic ties, and brokered under-
ground relations with Eastern European countries
hen the United Nations Security
Council erupted in debate last week
over whether to back a U.S. war on
Iraq, Israel's new ambassador to the
U.N. was conspicuously absent.
It wasn't by accident. Israel wants to keep a low
profile on Iraq because of the Arab argument
that a United States attack on Baghdad would
be for Israel's benefit.
"We are following the developments very
closely," said Dan Gillerman, who assumed
Israel's U.N. ambassadorship in January.
Indeed, two Israeli representatives attended
the Security Council meeting. But Israel is
trying to be low-key, Gillerman said. "We're
not part of it."
Gillerman, the former chairman of the
Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce,
director of Bank Leumi and the Bank of Israel
and CEO of chemical and agricultural tech-
nology companies, is Israel's first U.N. ambas-
sador to come from the business world. His
appointment comes as the United Nations
faces a momentous debate on whether to back
a U.S.-led war on Iraq, which could prompt
an Iraqi attack on the Jewish state and upset
the fragile dynamics of the Middle East.
And though Israel recently_ won its first
chairmanship of a U.N. body in 42 years, the
Arab-dominated United Nations — in which
Libya heads the human rights commission and
Syria sits on the Security Council — has been
hostile ground for the Jewish state.
According to Dina Siegel Vann, U.N. and
Latin American affairs director for B'nai B'rith
International, Gillerman's success in the cor-
porate "world of sharks" has prepared him
well for the hostile U.N. environment.
Gillerman has positioned himself as an out-
sider — for example, after launching an
Israeli-Palestinian business dialogue at the
2001 World Economic Forum in New York,
he joked, "We live in a world where politi-
cians build walls and businessman build
Dan Gillerman, Israel's new ambassador to the U.N.
bridges." Yet he now finds himself inside one
of the most labyrinthine political organs
before the collapse of the Soviet Union. He also
around.
snuck into Communist Hungary to meet the coun-
try's prime minister, and arranged a meeting for the
Up For The Challenge
Hungarian politician with Ariel Sharon, then
Israel's minister of industry and trade.
The challenge is natural for him, Gillerman says.
Gillerman hopes to use his U.N. position to pro-
"The things I did up until now have really been
mote peace, wipe out terrorism and boost Israel's
a preparation for this point," says the new ambas-
image. "Israel is ready and Prime Minister Sharon is
sador, who, with his smoothed hair, impeccable
ready," he says, to make what he calls "very far-
clothes, resonant voice and air of authority is the
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2003
24
reaching and even painful concessions for peace. But
in order to do that, Sharon must have a partner."
The time is close when Palestinian Authority
leader Yasser Arafat will either be forced from
office or will appoint a prime minister to run
Palestinian affairs, Gillerman prophesies. Last
week, Sharon met with Salam Fayed, the P.A.
finance minister, who is overseeing P.A. financial
reforms that the international community has
demanded.
In fighting Palestinian terrorism, Israel is
"fighting the world's war," Gillerman says.
On -Feb. 20, in his first speech before the
15-rn i4nber Security Council, the only
U.N.-body with binding authority, he reit-
erated that message. "I call on the Security
Council to implement a policy of zero tol-
erance for terrorism," Gillerman told the
body's Counter Terrorism Committee, ask-
ing the group to pressure and shame states
that support terror. "The time has come to
stop talking, and start acting."
Precedents And Possibilities
Israel enjoys strong bilateral ties with many
U.N. member countries, but those friend-
ships typically don't prevent those states
from bowing to Arab pressure to vote for
pro-Palestinian resolutions at all types of
U.N. meetings.
Being named as one of the three vice
chairs for the U.N.'s working group on dis-
armament does not represent a significant
shift in Israel's position at the world body,
Gillerman said. But it proves "you should
never give up," he says. "I hope it's a prece-
dent which we will be able to emulate again
in the future."
For now, Israel is fending off a
Palestinian-drafted resolution on terrorism
at the annual meeting of the Non-Aligned
Movement, an unofficial group of 135 U.N.
member states that is meeting in Malaysia.
Gillerman notes the absurdity of
Palestinians drafting a resolution on terror-
ism, but jokes that no group is better
equipped to write about the subject.
"A lot more people are going to know
who Dan Gillerman is," says Abraham
.Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation
League, comparing the new U.N. ambassador to
his predecessor, Yehuda Lancry, whom Foxman
praised as an effective, low-key diplomat.
With Gillerman at the U.N., Daniel Ayalon as
Israeli ambassador to the United States, and Alon
Pinkas as its consul general in New York, the
Jewish state has a more articulate lineup than it
has had in years, Foxman says.
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