Israel at the UN: Danny Danon says respect is returning behind closed doors

When Danny Danon returned to New York two years ago for his second stint as Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, he described the organization as a far more ferocious lion's den than the one he had left four years earlier.Danon borrowed the image from the title of his 2022 memoir, In the Lion's Den, itself a nod to his biblical namesake, Daniel. But the UN he reentered after October 7 bore little resemblance even to the inhospitable institution in which he served from 2015 to 2020 – a period that, from the vantage point of the Gaza war, looked almost like a diplomatic golden age.The atmosphere Danon returned to in 2024 was extraordinarily hostile. Israel's enemies were highly motivated, its allies exhausted, and ambassadors who had once met him regularly reluctant to be seen with him publicly.Two years later, the lions have not exactly become lambs.