UN fostering Jew-hatred

Tuesday 18th March 2008


United Nations resolutions against Israel are fostering anti-semitism around the world, an official US report claims.

The report from the Office of the Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism devoted a whole chapter to UN criticism of Israel while also highlighting state sponsored anti-semitism in Muslim countries such as Iran and Syria and in Venezuela.

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The 94-page investigation, written by Gregg Rickman, the special envoy for monitoring and combating anti-semitism, said that while the UN’s criticism of Israel may stem from legitimate concerns, “Disproportionate criticism of Israel as barbaric and unprincipled, and corresponding discriminatory measures adopted in the UN against Israel, have the effect of causing audiences to associate negative attributes with Jews in general, thus fuelling anti-Semitism.”

It observed traditional forms of prejudice against Jews in the Muslim world and across Europe while also highlighting a new feature of anti-semitism through criticism of Zionism. “Criticism of Zionism or Israeli policy that – whether intentionally or unintentionally – has the effect of promoting prejudice against all Jews by demonising Israel and Israelis and attributing Israel's perceived faults to its Jewish character,” the document said.

The governments of Syria and Belarus and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez were named in a list of governments and rulers who “fan the flames of anti-Semitic hatred within their own societies and even beyond their borders."

Concern was also raised about an increase in anti-semitic attacks across Europe and Jew-hatred in the media such as Poland’s conservative Catholic broadcaster Radio Maryja.

The document, a follow up to one issued in 2005, compiled data from government and NGO sources around the world. This year’s study was dedicated to Holocaust survivor turned Congressman Tom Lantos who passed away last month.

The report, presented to Congress on Thursday, observed: “Today, more than 60 years after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is not just a fact of history, it is a current event.”


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