Defending Israel Inside The UN Mission

What was most unexpected?

 Aviva: My boss. He, certainly, took an unexpected approach to diplomacy. One example is that I nicknamed him ‘The Singing Diplomat’. He’d be all too happy to break out into song in the middle of a speech, whether it be a song about African nations –which got him a standing ovation from some of the African nations in the General Assembly. That was an unexpected way to see someone approach diplomacy. His perspective was that there were so many countries at the UN, speeches given. Most countries don’t have a full time speech writer on staff, so they are written by a technical expert. They can be dry and not entirely lively. Ambassador Prosor felt it was very important to be heard, and to be heard you have to be different. He really leaned into it because he wanted people to listen to what he was saying. He knew he had to capture attention to get people to listen. 

With all these dictatorships in all these countries –could you, in theory, have a congenial relationship with the staff of Saudi Arabia? 

 Aviva: It is important to know that at the United Nations, there is what you see on the surface and then what’s going on behind closed doors. Certainly, diplomats had relationships would countries that don’t have formal political or diplomatic ties with Israel. Now, would they want to be photographed on the front of the New York Times? Absolutely not. But did that preclude them from getting together to have discussions? No. 

 Could you, as speechwriter, hang out with an ‘enemy state’ in the lunchroom? 

 Aviva: The first mistake in that question is the premise that I actually have time to sit for lunch. We’ll never know because I was far too overworked. 

 Tell me about an emergency session for you and how you coped with it. 

 Aviva: You can get a phone call any time of day or night, weekend and be told the Security Council is convening a special session, come down to the office we have to get writing. On the one hand, it didn’t happen very early on in my job. It happened when I had a little more experience. And it got to the point that I could write pretty fast. So, it wasn’t an absolute disaster. But still, you realize that you only have a few hours to pen what is going to be said, and emergency sessions tend to get a lot of publicity. So, it’s more than likely going to be live broadcast somewhere – certainly in Israeli media. 

Did any of your views of Israel change based on your newfound knowledge? 

 Aviva: I wouldn’t say my views changed. I’d say that my experience gave me a greater sense of what happens behind the scenes in international diplomacy and the ways in which Israel is working to find equality in the family of nations.

 Aviva: I write in my book that there is a certain mindset needed to work for Israel at the UN. You can’t be easily deterred by situations that seem unfair or unreasonable. You need a courage of conviction to deflect the constant attacks and brush aside the fact that systems and processes aren’t as simple as one might hope. It’s chaotic and haphazard. It’s hard work, long hours, and considerable stress. And you’re going to need to learn to write an endless number of quasi-funny one liners.