During her visit to Israel, US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power met with Zaka Chairman Yehuda Meshi-Zahav for the first time since the UN Committee on NGOs granted consultative status (on January 26, 2016) to the Jerusalem-based international humanitarian voluntary organization.

Meshi-Zahav thanked Ambassador Power for her relentless activities within the last six months in particular to help ensure that Zaka received advisory status, despite the five consecutive rejections and the systematic bias within the UN that Power claims “has extended well beyond Israel as a country to Israel as an idea.”

The Zaka Chairman noted that Ambassador Power took on herself the challenge – or “mission impossible” in her own words – of ensuring that Zaka would indeed receive UN consultative status.

Meshi-Zahav stated, “Without doubt, it is thanks to the tireless support of US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, together with the Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, that Zaka was finally able to take its rightful place at the UN, as an NGO that offers humanitarian aid and specialist emergency response to mass casualty incidents around the world, regardless of religion, race or creed. As an expression of our gratitude and esteem, Zaka has extended an invitation to Ambassador Power to be our guest of honor at a tribute event in New York later this year.”

Speaking before a model UN at a school in Even Yehuda on Monday, noted that “Israel is just not treated like other countries” and cited Zaka as an example of this systematic bias.

“Zaka not only works here in Israel, but it responds to natural and manmade disasters worldwide, as it did in New York after 9/11, and in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. Yet when Zaka was nominated in 2013 for accreditation by the UN’s NGO committee – and this accreditation is what gives NGOs the right to participate in UN meetings, the right to assert their voices, the right to raise causes that really matter in the world – when Zaka was put forward it was denied approval. Five subsequent times the committee met, and five times member states blocked Zaka – not because of the quality of its work, people weren’t that interested in the quality of its work, but simply because Zaka is an Israeli organization.”

Photo: (left to right) US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power and Zaka Chairman Yehuda Meshi-Zahav.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem / Photo: Zaka)