As the conflict between Israel and Hamas rages on in the beleaguered Gaza Strip, with a ceasefire proving to be elusive, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian Authority’s ambassador to the United Nations, advocates for his people and their plight from his perch in New York. The Trump administration closed the PLO’s Washington DC office in 2018, leaving Palestinians without official representation to the White House—and leaving Mansour as an influential voice in the United States.

During an hour-long conversation with Skip Kaltenheuser, Mansour, 77. stressed that he represents the Palestinian people as a whole, rather than any specific group.

In the early stages of the Gaza war following the killing of some 1,200 Israelis by Hamas, many countries supported Israel’s military offensive to dismantle the group and secure the release of 251 hostages. However, as Israel’s campaign against the decimated coastal enclave has dragged on, resulting in the deaths of more than 40,000 people—many of them women and children, and displacing most of the population—support for the war has steadily waned, with calls at the UN for Israel to accept a ceasefire growing louder.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Washington Diplomat: Regarding the media, how do you assess the US mainstream media’s coverage of the Gaza war?

Ambassador Riyad Mansour: Well, the mainstream press was, for many months since the beginning of this catastrophe, fixated only on the narrative of the Israeli side and they did not show sufficient objectivity with regards to the plight of the Palestinian people. But lately, there has been a slight shift in covering the tragedy of the Palestinian people and the massive number of losses—especially since Vice President Kamala Harris, on more than one occasion, was stressing the importance of a ceasefire, which was the call of millions of people who have been demonstrating in the streets, including in American colleges and universities. But it’s not sufficient, which is very unfortunate.

Diplomat: Are you heartened by what appears to be a very strong level of support throughout the United Nations?

Mansour: I really appreciate the massive support that we have, the solidarity and empathy that the international community have demonstrated over the months in demanding an immediate ceasefire and demanding humanitarian assistance to scale, as proposed by the secretary-general of the UN and opposition to the crime against humanity of the forced displacement of people with the threat of expelling them completely from the Gaza Strip. And part of the reason why we have this massive support at the UN is because many countries have gone through the pain that we are going through during their [efforts] to put an end to colonialism and to acquire their political and economic independence.

Diplomat: Has the support you enjoy from a multitude of countries at the UN had much of an impact on the US position?

Mansour: For sure, it is impacting the US position, but the US is moving very slowly compared, for example, to the Europeans. A number of those countries, led by Spain, have shifted their position from recognizing and admitting the state of Palestine [to UN membership] from the end of the process—as the United States advocates—to the beginning of the process, as an investment in peace and saving the two-state solution. The United States is not yet making a move in that direction. There are slight shifts, but yet they are not at the same level and same impact of the position and the shift of the number of European countries and other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. And hopefully we are going to see a similar shift with a number of Asian countries. The fact that Japan and South Korea voted in the Security Council under the General Assembly for the admission of the State of Palestine for membership is another indication of a shift in Asia.

Diplomat: What kind of reception are you getting from Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN? Has she ever sent personally sympathetic signals?

Mansour: We have a professional, in general, cordial relationship, and we engage them. We engage everyone, with the exception of [Israel]. We operate on the basis that the United States is the most powerful country that can influence Israel if they use all the tools available to them.

Diplomat: What about the recent US decision to send an additional $23.5 billion in military aid to Israel?

Mansour: This is another contradiction. On one hand, [the US] wants to have leverage to force the Netanyahu government to accept the ceasefire and the implementation of Resolution 2735. Yet on the other hand, [President Joe Biden] gives them the resources to continue waging this war of atrocities and genocide against our people. If you keep saying something but doing something to the contrary, a diplomat like Netanyahu, who is capable of playing on all wavelengths, senses that you are not really pressuring him as much as you should. And therefore he plays games with you.

Diplomat: Do you believe the US has not thrown up the brakes because they’re not that worried about a wider war?

Mansour: I don’t know really their motives. You can ask them these questions, but the tragedy is that more than 40,000 Palestinian people have been killed, and perhaps 10,000 or more are under the rubble, and close to 100,000 injured, and most of them are children and women. The devastation is beyond comprehension. No matter how much we describe to you the horror and destruction in Gaza, it is not like seeing it with your own eyes. Netanyahu wants to continue this war until he sees the results of the US election in November to determine his next moves.

Diplomat: What challenges does the current Israeli government’s actions pose to the reconstruction and livability of Gaza?

Mansour: The current Israeli government’s [objective] is either to depopulate Gaza or make Gaza so destroyed that it is not possible to live in it—nor will you be able to raise funds to be able to rebuild it. That’s the stage we are in, even if there is a ceasefire. We need $40-50 billion. Who is going to donate this money to reconstruct Gaza? We want people to go back to where [Palestinians] were forced to leave, and then try our luck to see if we can raise enough funds to rebuild Gaza in order to keep the people living there, because we don’t want the Israeli extremist government to succeed in depopulating Gaza. That explains the large number of killed and injured, the destruction of hospitals, schools, universities, shelters, infrastructure, no safe water, no safe zones, no electricity, no sewage system. Now we’re having diseases. We’re having polio on the horizon. And above all, they are using starvation as a criminal method of war in order to bring the people to submission.

Diplomat: Are you seeing a major impact from the ICC’s accusation of war crimes against Israel and its leadership?

Mansour: Within the International Court of Justice, they say that this occupation is illegal and should be terminated as quickly as possible. So, if there is global consensus, more or less, on a two-state solution and the end of occupation, then it becomes more logical that the international community should impose its will to make it a reality, meaning the end of occupation, the dismantling of settlements and evacuation of settlers—allowing the Palestinian people in these areas to exercise self-determination, the refugees to return to their homes and properties, and the state of Palestine to become independent, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Diplomat:  Is the prospect of becoming a world pariah important to Israel as it considers its policies and practices?

Mansour: Our hope is that they move in that direction. But their representative at the UN is becoming more and more belligerent. They are attacking everyone, from the secretary-general to the Security Council to the General Assembly and individual countries—even their strongest ally, the United States. They are not demonstrating any acceptance of this global consensus. They don’t want to talk about anything other than Iran, and Iran is the source of everything. By doing that, they think they can continue doing what they are doing against the Palestinian people and making them suffer more. Israel’s leaders are not  interested in peace, harmony or understanding the pain of others.

Diplomat: Do you think Israel’s actions against Palestinian civilians are engineered to try to implement a wider regional war, particularly with Iran, into which they can pull the United States?

Mansour: They are doing all these things because they do not acknowledge that the Palestinian people have any claim to any part of their ancestral homeland. They don’t believe the Palestinian people are qualified to exercise self-determination, or that what they call Judea and Samaria belongs to anyone except the settlers who are extremists and defy all international law. So, how do you have peace with those who are determined either to eliminate you, or to put you in jail, or to expel you, or to make you a servant to them and to their ambitions? That’s where they are now, and these are the nightmares we are living through. We need to see fundamental changes. And if they do not change by themselves, then the international community should force them either to change or to force them to stop. What they are doing to the Palestinian people is what happened in South Africa, and the apartheid minority regime did not change out of its goodness. The international community cornered it and forced it to comply to the wishes of the majority. So as it happened in South Africa, it has to happen in the same manner in Palestine.

Diplomat: What was your take on hearing Vice President Harris speak at the Democratic National Convention? She mentioned her concern for Gaza, but overall, still made the case for Israel.

Mansour: I think you’re right, but the fact that she mentioned self-determination for the Palestinian people is a step in the right direction. But I know that there is a strong movement, including among members in Congress, that you cannot give a tremendous amount of weapons to Israel and yet call for a ceasefire at the same time. So threatening to not to arm Israel would be an effective tool in the hands of the administration to bring about a very quick ceasefire.

Diplomat: How do you feel about the prospect of President Trump winning the elections?

Mansour: We are engaging anyone in the administration, the current one, and anyone [in a future one]. We need to put an end to our tragedy. We need them to say they want a two-state solution. Let us take practical measures against those who are destroying the two-state solution before our eyes. Let us respect the wish of ending the occupation and allowing the state of Palestine to enjoy its independence and sovereignty. We hope they engage in practical steps to allow this nightmare of occupation and atrocities against us—particularly in Gaza—to end, and to allow for the State of Palestine to be recognized, be a member of the United Nations, and to be equal to all those in the United Nations, including the State of Israel. It was the United Nations that legislated a two-state solution in 1947 when it adopted the Partition Plan. Let us complete the uncompleted part. We are not there yet.