Volume 40, Issue 2 ________________________________Bible Prophecy Ministry



Anti-Semitism
in the United Nations

Anti-Semitism in the United Nations" is a matter of fact. While it is impossible to charge the UN, an indispensable world organization, with anti-Semitism, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that there is a considerable anti-Semitic component behind the policies that are proposed and pursued there and expressed without challenge.(except for the United States and Micronesia) .

Emergency Special Sessions of the United Nations General Assembly are rare. No such session has ever been convened with respect to the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, the slaughters in Rwanda, the disappearances in Zaire or the horrors of Bosnia. In fact, during the last 15 years they have been called only to condemn Israel. And the UN has met to condemn Israel 856 times. Roughly 61% of all UN resolutions are against the nation of Israel. One would think that the tiniest nation on this earth is bullying all of its bigger neighbors, according to the UN actions on Israel.

Whereas Arab states have traditionally used the UN forum to demonize and isolate Israel (for example, they routinely attempt to deny Israel its credentials), they now believe they enjoy "Western" support which emboldens them.

As a result of such bias, the UN has lost credibility. It is no surprise that the Oslo Agreements were negotiated outside the auspices of the UN, and contained no role for the UN. Though Israel was the subject of aggressive wars in 1948, 1967, and 1973 and the victim of countless terrorist attacks, the Security Council and the General Assembly have never once censured Israel's assailants. It is not just an issue of anti-Israel bias; it is difficult to ignore an anti-Jewish bent in many instances. For 50 years the UN has condemned virtually every conceivable form of racism. It has established programs to combat racism and its multiple facets, including xenophobia, but had consistently refused to do the same against anti-Semitism until 1993, and then, only under intense US pressure.

Instead, the General Assembly established two Special Committees and two "special units" in the Secretariat devoted exclusively to Israeli practices, costing millions of dollars yearly. These produce anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist pamphlets, booklets, papers and films, which are even distributed in the UN's six official languages to school children all around the world. The intense hostility that Israel faces in the UN and the anti-Semitic reverberations are illustrated by two events that occurred at the “Commission on Human Rights” in 1991 and 1997. During the 1991 session, the Syrian Ambassador repeated the Damascus Blood Libel that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood to make Matzoth. The Western democracies could not be stirred to challenge this age-old anti-Semitic libel (which the Ottoman Sultan as the ruler of Syria, denounced when it surfaced in the 1840s). It took intense US pressure to procure a challenge to this libel in the record, and then only months after the Syrian representative emphasized to the Commission, "it's true, it's true, it's true." Then just this year (2001) Syrian President Bashar Assad compelled upon Pope John Paul II to join in the Jihad against Israel, “ the Christ killlers”. The Pope, oddly enough never rejected that suggestion.

Since the Oslo Accords, 259 Israelis have been killed and 5000 injured by Palestinian terror attacks. During the same period, 34 resolutions deploring Israel were passed at the UN, but not one against the terror attacks. The unique treatment of Israel cannot be explained on purely political grounds. Though anti-Semitic canards can go unchallenged in the UN, the mere reference in the 1997 Commission on Human Rights to an allegedly blasphemous reference to Islam, by a UN expert and from an academic source, brought a rebuff by consensus by the Chair, and the deletion of the offending sentence.

The viciousness with which Israel is attacked, and the reluctance of even democratic states to defend Israel or to accord it the same latitude for mistakes and wrongs that it freely and reciprocally accords other states, has a special quality and origin. There is ample justification the UN Human Rights system: "It is the tool of those who would make Israel the archetypal human rights violator in the world today. It is a breeding ground for anti-Semitism. It is a sanctuary for moral relativists. In short, it is a scandal."

The infamous “Zionism is Racism” resolution was passed in 1975. Although the resolution was rescinded in 1991, Anti-Semitism in UN forums is still a force to be reckoned with, bearing in mind that 25 Member States voted against repealing that resolution, and that 13 abstained. Anti-Semitism is not dead. Although anti-Semitic incidents have declined and a multi-cultural acceptance has produced wider tolerance in many states including the US, a 2000-year-old virus has mutated, and lives on, often in a disguised form. And the existence and achievements of the Jewish state in a region of relative backwardness, serves to stimulate anti-Semitism and furnish a respectable cover. Once anti-Semitism had a religious basis but, with the declining significance of Christianity in the West, anti-Semitism in church circles gets relatively little, or even no acknowledgement.

Hitler exploited anti-Semitism with deadly consequences for Jews and the world. But racial anti-Semitism has been tabooed after the Holocaust. The mere existence of the state of Israel permits anti-Semitism to assume a political form, safe from challenge as intolerance or racism. How many times one hears: The existence and achievements of national Israel offer a visible and irresistible target for dormant anti-Semitic feelings aroused by a focus on Israel's mistakes and misdeeds, which are characteristic of every state including the US. Some Arab states appear to have now found a way to accomplish a purpose that the unrepealed PLO Charter, pledging the destruction of Israel has not achieved.

Wars with Israel have been disasters and are much too problematic to repeat. The attempt to bring Israel to its knees through sanctions and boycotts at the Security Council faces a US veto. However, these Emergency Special Sessions of the UN General Assembly, in which all but 3 states have joined in a collective denunciation, show the possibility of a slow but sure de-legitimization of Israel and the hope of some for its eventual strangulation. Israel stands at the precipice of being treated at the UN as South Africa during apartheid. It is certainly not comparable, considering that Israeli Arabs are citizens, vote and sit in the Knesset. The challenge to Israel's right to exist as an equal state may soon move from the PLO Charter to the UN.

Psalms 2:1-12 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, ( Jesus Christ ) lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. (KJV)



Darrell G. Young
Copyright©2001






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