{"id":61985,"date":"2018-06-07T17:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-06-07T15:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=61985"},"modified":"2018-06-05T07:26:49","modified_gmt":"2018-06-05T05:26:49","slug":"14-00-29","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=61985","title":{"rendered":"The UN\u2019s Sordid Embrace of Antisemitism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>The UN\u2019s Sordid Embrace of Antisemitism<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Anne Bayefsky<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

US Ambassador Nikki Haley casts her veto at the UN Security Council on June 1, 2018. Photo: Reuters\/Shannon Stapleton.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The following is a speech delivered by Anne Bayefsky, Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and the President of Human Rights Voices, at the Special Forum on \u201cEvolving Hatred: Antisemitism & BDS Today\u201d convened by the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations, UN, May 30, 2018.<\/em><\/p>\n

The United Nations is an institution built on the ashes of the Jewish people and the devastation wreaked by antisemitism upon all civilization.<\/span><\/p>\n

And yet, the UN has never adopted a resolution or commissioned a report singularly devoted to exposing, denouncing, and eradicating antisemitism wherever it occurs. Just this month, the Security Council was asked and refused to issue a \u201cfirm and unequivocal rejection of antisemitism and Holocaust denial.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Why not? The answer is painfully clear: antisemitism itself. Right here in the United Nations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Antisemitism at the UN does more than stymie opportunities for prevention. It creates occasions for promotion. The marketing strategy has three identifiable steps.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step one: Deny. As a matter of routine, antisemites say they aren\u2019t antisemites.<\/span><\/p>\n

Except they are.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two weeks ago \u2014 in this very room \u2014 a two-day forum on the \u201cQuestion of Palestine\u201d was convened. Under UN auspices. With UN-invited speakers and UN-accredited participants.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speakers deprecated \u201cthe idea of a chosen people\u201d and railed against a \u201cJewish lobby.\u201d The Palestinian UN representative claimed Palestinian land was \u201cexactly like\u201d German-occupied France and Poland.<\/span><\/p>\n

On May 18, 2018 at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, UN-accredited delegates (both states and NGOs) said: \u201cThe atrocities seen during the Second World War [are] happening again\u201d and Palestinians are being \u201cexterminated with a view to totally destroy the identity of a people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Right down the hall from here a \u201cPalestine\u201d exhibit has been deliberately relocated next to the Holocaust exhibit. Tour guides don\u2019t stop at one without stopping at the other.<\/span><\/p>\n

Belittling Jewish religious beliefs, invoking Jewish conspiracy theories, and analogizing Israelis to Nazis isn\u2019t subtle. It\u2019s antisemitism.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the May forum successive speakers also denounced any Jewish state. Broadcast by the UN, for instance: the \u201cracist policies \u2026 of Israel \u2026 draw from the Jewish character of the State of Israel.\u201d A \u201cJewish democracy\u201d is \u201can oxymoron.\u201d And the Palestinian UN representative said, \u201cPresident Truman, when they put a piece of paper for him, for the recognition of the Jewish State of Israel, he scratched the Jewish and he left it only as the State of Israel. This is only just to set the record straight.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Straight historical revisionism, that is. Actually, Truman crossed out the typewritten \u201cJewish state\u201d and added with his own hand \u201cState of Israel\u201d solely in response to learning the country\u2019s new name and ensuring the US was first to recognize Israel 11 minutes after its proclamation.<\/span><\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t complicated. Self-determination for everyone but the Jewish people is antisemitism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step two: Obfuscate. Religious bigots claim that the conflict with Israel is not about religious bigotry.<\/span><\/p>\n

Except it is.<\/span><\/p>\n

They now say it\u2019s about the 1967 borders and post-1967 settlements.<\/span><\/p>\n

But a mere two weeks ago, right here, a UN-invited guest said Israel was \u201cthe only country in modern memory that uprooted its refugees, then \u2026 massacred them and humiliated them for seven decades.\u201d Referring to Israel\u2019s birth in 1948, the Palestinian UN representative declared, \u201cWe are very, very eager in order to put an end to \u2026 the misery of our people after 70 years of occupation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Challenging Israel\u2019s existence for 70 years is antisemitism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step three: Attack. Charge Jews with participating in a cover-up and forbidding any criticism of Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Except they don\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, UN meetings in New York and Geneva in the past two weeks, which are not atypical, have resounded with accusations that the \u201cIsraeli killing machine\u201d has been engaged in \u201cethnic cleansing,\u201d \u201ca culture of hate,\u201d \u201catrocities,\u201d \u201cegregious cruelty,\u201d \u201cgenocide,\u201d \u201ccrimes against humanity,\u201d \u201csavagery,\u201d \u201cbrutality,\u201d and \u201ca moral depravity of the most evil kind.\u201d For starters.<\/span><\/p>\n

No other country in the UN is subject to this kind of onslaught. This isn\u2019t criticism. It\u2019s a feeding frenzy. It\u2019s antisemitism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s not forget that at the United Nations we\u2019ve been down this path before.<\/span><\/p>\n

Remember the alleged \u201cmassacre\u201d of 500 people in the suicide-bomber capital of Jenin in 2002? Three months later, the UN admitted there had been no massacre and a total of about 20 Palestinian civilians had died, fewer than the number of Israeli casualties.<\/span><\/p>\n

Remember the UN Goldstone report of 2009? It accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians \u2014 until Goldstone himself recanted the libel.<\/span><\/p>\n

And now comes the latest UN mission launched amid accusations of another Israeli massacre of civilians in Gaza. This one debunked by Hamas and Islamic Jihad themselves, who couldn\u2019t resist boasting that 85% of casualties were their own.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a pattern here. It\u2019s called antisemitism. Or as the Queen of Hearts would describe UN inquisitions, \u201cSentence first. Verdict afterwards.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond the UN hyperbole, straight statistics tell the same story:<\/span><\/p>\n