UN ground zero for antisemitism and incitement on a global scale
“The Israeli occupation...leave[s] [Palestinian] prisoners exposed to deadly diseases....The Israeli occupation is the world’s only entity in which doctors torture and blackmail prisoners.”
By ZIVA DAHLUNITED NATIONS Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrives to address media at the UN headquarters(photo credit: REUTERS)
September has arrived and with it, “show time” at the United Nations – the 71st session of its General Assembly.Prior to the main event, a forum on antisemitism was held last week, attended by the UN secretary general and the ambassadors of the US, Canada, the EU, Israel and other countries.This forum’s goal was to draw attention to the worldwide rise of antisemitism which, according to Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon, is “at the highest level of our lifetimes,” and find constructive ways to remedy the problem. Ironically, but not surprisingly, the forum failed to address the elephant in the room – that the UN itself supports and promotes the very antisemitism about which this conference expressed concern.Unexplored was that the UN provides a global megaphone for antisemitism through its accreditation of many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that promote Jew-hatred, condone or justify violence and terrorism, and advocate for the destruction of the Jewish state.A recent report by Anne Bayefsky and Sarah Willig of Human Rights Voices documents the travesty.The UN accredits more than 6,150 NGOs. To qualify, NGOs must conform to the UN Charter by affirming “faith in fundamental human rights... in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small.”These NGOs are allowed to sponsor UN programs, speak at UN meetings, submit statements to UN bodies, access international press, post on UN websites and have their messages broadcast globally via UN webcasts. By providing international exposure and legitimacy to NGOs that blatantly violate Charter principles, the UN is complicit in the rise of antisemitism today.The Bayefsky-Willig report cites numerous detailed examples of UN-accredited NGO hate mongering which incites antisemitism. Here is but a small representative sample: “Gas chambers are not needed...little girls riddled with bullets, infants beheaded by shell fire; a little massacre here, a little starvation there.... Israel has given itself the right to erase the Palestinian presence...to commit genocide.” (Women for Palestine)“Zionism is a colonialist, racist, ideology of conquest, oppression, subjugation and control.” (Near East Cultural and Educational Foundation of Canada) “Our world is now faced with... a new type of Nazism...Zionism, with its inhumane ethnic, racist principles... devilish schemes which generate chaos all over the world... the [Israeli] practice of extracting human organs from killed Palestinians...and the sale of these organs.” (International Organization for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination)“The Al-Quds Intifadah [Palestinian knifings of Israeli civilians in Jerusalem] is the legitimate expression of the Palestinian people’s will to resist continued subjugation and humiliation by the occupying power.” (International Progress Organization)
“Today the Gaza Strip... has become a concentration camp whose occupants are victims of the crimes committed by their jailers.” (American Association of Jurists to the UN Human Rights Council)“The policies of incremental ethnic cleansing that Israel calls ‘Judaization’ are proceeding apace.” (Habitat International Coalition) “Since its imposition in 1948 in Palestine, the Israeli state has... killed, injured, imprisoned and tortured, and used Palestinian children as human shields.” (Al-Awda, The Palestine Right To Return Coalition)“The Israeli occupation...leave[s] [Palestinian] prisoners exposed to deadly diseases....The Israeli occupation is the world’s only entity in which doctors torture and blackmail prisoners.” (Khiam Rehabilitation Center)Many UN-accredited NGOs wipe Israel off their maps, depicting “Palestine” as all of Israel plus Gaza, Judea and Samaria.Since the UN accredits these NGOs through a formal process, it can’t claim that it’s ignorant of their anti-Semitic activities and messaging. The truth is there in plain sight for anyone who wants to see it.According to the US State Department, antisemitism today includes demonizing Israel, delegitimizing its right to exist in it historical homeland and holding Israel to a higher standard than any other state.Propagating “blood libels” against Israelis and working to destroy this UN member state are clearly anti-Semitic and violate the UN Charter. If there is genuine concern about the rise of antisemitism, then concrete actions must be taken to stop UN NGOs from abusing their powerful global platform to incite hatred.America and other Western democracies have turned a willfully blind eye to this loathsome reality and continue to subsidize global Jew-hatred via their funding of the UN, an institution created in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust that has utterly failed to live up to its promise.As Ayn Rand wrote, “The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see.”The author is a fellow with the Haym Salomon Center with an MA in public law and government from Columbia University and a BA in political science from Vassar College. Her bylines appear in The New York Daily News, The New York Observer and The Hill.