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The United Nations and Antisemitism 2008-2017 Report Card Part 2: Evaluating UN Performance on Antisemitism Copyright © 2018 United Nations Watch All rights reserved. Cover by John Funk Layout by Cara Kaye Acknowledgments Dina Rovner, the Legal Advisor of UN Watch, was the chief researcher and writer of this report. The editor was Executive Director Hillel Neuer. Research and other assistance was provided by current and former staff and interns including Dan Smith, Jonathan Valk, David Mendoza-Wolfson and Alice Hüttner. About UN Watch Founded in 1993, UN Watch is a non-governmental organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, that monitors the United Nations by the yardstick of its charter and protects human rights worldwide. For more information, please visit our website: www.unwatch.org. The United Nations and Antisemitism 2008-2017 Report Card 45 Part 2: Evaluating UN Performance on Antisemitism “The United Nations emerged from the ashes of the Holocaust. And a human rights agenda that fails to address anti-Semitism denies its own history. We look to our friends in civil society to keep us up to the mark.” UN Secretary-General Ko Annan June 21, 2004 “A United Nations that wants to be true to its founding aims and ideals has a duty to speak out against anti-Semitism.” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon January 22, 2015 “As secretary-general of the United Nations, I will be on the front line of the struggle against anti-Semitism, to make sure the United Nations is able to take all possible actions for anti-Semitism to be condemned, and if possible, eradicated from the face of the earth.” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres April 23, 2017 The United Nations and Antisemitism 2008-2017 Report Card 46 46 Part 2: Evaluating UN Performance on Antisemitism TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary................................2 Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council..........................26 Introduction...........................................4 Special Rapporteur on Part 1: Racism.................................................. 26 Global Antisemitism 2008-2017............ 4 Special Rapporteur on Religious Freedom............................... 28 Rise of Antisemitism in Past Decade ......................................4 Recommendations............................... 30 Attacks Inspired by Radical Islam.......................................... 6 UN Treaty Bodies................................ 30 The Rise of Left-Wing The Human Rights Antisemitism..........................................8 Committee........................................... 30 Traditional Right-Wing The Committee on the Antisemitism Also on the Rise.............10 Elimination of Racial Discrimination...................................... 32 Part 2: Evaluating UN Performance Recommendations............................... 33 on Antisemitism...................................10 UN Holocaust Commemoration...........34 General Assembly................................10 The UN Holocaust Outreach Resolutions...........................................10 Program............................................... 34 Informal Meeting on Recommendations............................... 35 Antisemitism.........................................12 UNESCO.............................................. 35 Recommendations................................13 UNESCO Holocaust Secretary-General................................14 Education Program.............................. 36 Ban Ki-Moon.........................................14 UNESCO as a Vehicle for Promoting the Anti-Israel Antonio Guterres..................................19 Narrative.............................................. 37 Recommendations................................19 Recommendations............................... 40 High Commissioner for Conclusion........................................... 41 Human Rights...................................... 20 Louise Arbour.......................................20 Navi Pillay..............................................21 Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein ..........................23 Recommendations............................... 25 The United Nations and Antisemitism 2008-2017 Report Card 47 Part 2: Evaluating UN Performance on Antisemitism During the course of his tenure from 2006 to 2016, EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued more than 100 condemnations of terror attacks worldwide. When Antisemitism is a global scourge that requires a global the attack targeted religious worshippers, mosques response. With deadly attacks escalating worldwide or Christian clergy, his condemnations included over the past decade—from Kansas to Copenhagen, strong language against the targeting of people Mumbai to Toulouse—the United Nations has a for their religious beliefs. By contrast, he refrained unique role to play in combating hatred, incitement from employing similarly strong language regarding and violence against Jews. terrorist attacks against Jewish targets, many of which he did not condemn at all. In a decade marked by Anti-racism is the defining ideology of the United shocking antisemitic violence, Mr. Ban was often silent. Nations and its human rights mechanisms. Yet all too While he proved quick to condemn an anti-Muslim film often, as documented in this report’s comprehensive or statement by private parties, he failed to address examination of the actions of key UN officials, agencies pervasive, state-sanctioned incitement to antisemitism and experts over the past decade, it seems that the UN in the Middle East, including Iran’s Holocaust denial, sees racism everywhere, and antisemitism nowhere. Jewish conspiracy theories, and calls to commit genocide. There are notable exceptions. Secretary-General , like his predecessors Ban Ki- Antonio Guterres High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, moon and Kofi Annan, has made a series of positive who served from 2008 to 2014, was likewise quick to statements about combating antisemitism. The condemn a film perceived as anti-Muslim, as well as General Assembly hosted an informal meeting on “malicious” cartoons by Charlie Hebdo. Yet in the antisemitism in 2015. The UN’s Holocaust Outreach face of murderous physical attacks against Jews, Program commemorates and teaches about the such as the shooting at a Toulouse Jewish school, Holocaust, reaching broad audiences worldwide. Pillay was typically silent. Worse, Pillay and her office repeatedly smeared Jewish organizations as “single- UNESCO recently released a publication with the issue lobbyists” for seeking to prevent antisemitism OSCE aimed at assisting policymakers in addressing from infecting the UN’s 2009 “Durban II” conference antisemitism through education. Notwithstanding on racism. its repeated adoption of one-sided resolutions condemning Israel and downplaying the ancient Current High Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein Jewish heritage of Jerusalem and Hebron, UNESCO has not only turned a blind eye to antisemitic also hosted, after an initial postponement, an exhibit incitement and violent attacks—even though he has on the 3,000-year-old connection of the Jewish people addressed incitement against Muslims in Myanmar— to the Land of Israel. but he has repeatedly engaged, as have other UN officials, in what Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt Regrettably, however, the exceptions prove the rule. has called softcore Holocaust denial, through a series Over a decade when Jews were targeted for slaughter of statements that seek to de-Judaize the Holocaust. in India, France, Belgium, Denmark and elsewhere— whether in a Jewish school, museum, synagogue or The UN Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteurs supermarket—the UN’s primary agencies and officials on racism and freedom of religion ought to be for addressing discrimination have, for the most part, the first UN experts to speak out against anti-Jewish turned a blind eye to antisemitism. discrimination and violence. However, as a rule, successive mandate-holders over the past decade have UN plenaries like the General Assembly and the failed to comment on rising antisemitism, including Human Rights Council, which enact hundreds of the murderous incitement against Jews in the Arab resolutions a year, including on subjects related to and Muslim world, or deadly attacks in Europe and racial and religious discrimination, failed to address elsewhere. By contrast, they did speak out on behalf the threat of antisemitism, other than in a few passing of other targeted groups. words included in general statements. Until 2010, both the General Assembly and the Human Rights Finally, expert bodies like the Human Rights Council adopted annual resolutions focused on the Committee and the Committee on the Elimination “defamation of Islam and Muslims,” mandating special of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which review reports, yet there was never one resolution to address country compliance with international treaties, should anti-Jewish hatred and violence. The United Nations and Antisemitism 2008-2017 Report Card 2 Part 2: Evaluating UN Performance on Antisemitism be affirmatively monitoring state parties for any Moreover, though antisemitic incitement from the antisemitic incitement or violence which puts Jews Arab and Muslim world has inspired horrific antisemitic at risk, or infringes their rights to freely practice the attacks worldwide, the CERD addressed hate speech Jewish religion. Yet an examination of the Human in these countries only when the speech was directed Rights Committee’s concluding observations for at other groups—but