UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan Calls for Partnership between Jewish Community and UN

American Jewish Committee
Monday, 13 December 1999

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan last night praised the American Jewish Committee for its longstanding involvement with and support for the UN, as he appealed to the broader Jewish community to deepen its cooperation with the world body.

"The question is not whether the United Nations and the Jewish community should be closer partners," said the Secretary General. "Rather, the key issue is how we shall get from here to there."

In an address delivered at the AJC's tribute to Ambassador Morris Abram, a former U.S. ambassador to the UN in Geneva and founding chairman of the Geneva-based watchdog group UN Watch, the Secretary General expressed his high admiration for the honoree.

Ambassador Abram, who served as AJC President in the 1960s, has become over the years "a forceful advocate of freedom, tolerance and civil rights," said Secretary General Annan. "He has, in short, proved himself a global citizen of the first rank," adding that he was commending Ambassador Abram even though the United Nations "has often been on the receiving end of some sharp criticism from UN Watch, Morris's current passion."

Joining in the salute to Ambassador Abram was Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, who had returned from Africa just hours before the dinner; Ambassador Yitzhak Lior, Deputy Director General for International Organizations at Israel's Foreign Ministry, who flew from Jerusalem to be at the event; and Edgar Bronfman, President of the World Jewish Congress and the key founding supporter of UN Watch, who offered a toast to Ambassador Abram.

AJC President Bruce M. Ramer presented Ambassador Abram with AJC's National Distinguished Leadership Award.

Ambassador Abram has "pushed the United Nations to place higher priority on human rights," said Ambassador Holbrooke.

Ambassador Lior praised the AJC's ongoing outreach to diplomats at the UN and around the world, adding that the recent partnership established between AJC and UN Watch is a "natural liaison."

While praising Ambassador Abram's lifetime achievements, the evening's speakers also criticized the continuing discrimination against Israel within the UN system, in particular Israel's exclusion from a regional group. Membership in one of the five regional groups is a prerequisite to vying for election to a rotating seat on the Security Council and to other key bodies in the international organization.

"In 1949, Israel became a member of the United Nations and yet, in the ensuing half century, Israel's treatment within the UN has been that of a virtual pariah," Ambassador Abram said in his address to the dinner. "One does not even have to care about Israel to realize that the shameful list of discriminations does the UN great harm."

The American Jewish Committee has spearheaded the campaign to get Israel temporary membership in the Western European and Others (WEOG) group, since Arab states and others have blocked, for half a century, Israel's admission into the Asia bloc.

Mr. Annan expressed hope that ongoing discussions would result in Israel's joining a regional group.

"I had very much hoped that member states would have reached agreement on this by now," Secretary General Annan said. "We must uphold the principle of equality among member states. I shall keep encouraging all concerned to find a solution."

Ambassador Holbrooke conveyed the personal disappointment of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright over the failure of the European Union to reach consensus on admitting Israel to WEOG on a temporary basis.

"I have worked with many in this room, including [AJC Executive Director] David Harris, to correct this inequity" of Israel's exclusion from a regional group, the only one of 188 UN member states to be excluded, said Ambassador Holbrooke.

"We call again on our friends in the European Union to reexamine what they are not doing, to stop looking for procedural reasons not to do it and to give Israel what it rightfully deserves - membership in their regional group," said Ambassador Holbrooke. "As long as I am U.S. ambassador to the UN, this will remain one of my top priorities."

Secretary General Annan acknowledged that in the Jewish community "it has sometimes seemed as if the United Nations serves the interests of all peoples but one: the Jews," citing the exclusion of Israel from the system of regional groupings, the intense focus given to some of Israel's actions, and the infamous resolution equating Zionism with racism.

"One of my priorities as Secretary-General has been to try to heal these wounds and find our way to mutual understanding and partnership," he said.

The Jewish community, and the American Jewish Committee in particular, "has been a significant presence at the United Nations from the beginning." Among the examples cited by the Secretary General were:

AJC leaders were in San Francisco when the UN was founded and helped to infuse the UN Charter with concern for justice and human rights.

Earlier this year, AJC donated $200,000 to the UN refugee agency for the reconstruction of schools in Kosovo, "showing a humanitarian impulse that recognizes neither borders nor creed, but only fellow human beings in need."

Last month, Felice Gaer, director of AJC's Jacob Blaustein Institute, became the first US national elected to the UN Committee Against Torture. "Ms. Gaer brings a wealth of experience to the committee," said Secretary General Annan, and, as its only female member, "she will help correct the gender imbalance that has characterized the committee."

AJC President Bruce M. Ramer's testimony in Congress last July in which he called the UN an "indispensable organization" while urging Congress to pay the U.S. debt to the world body in full.

"If the United Nations can be increasingly confident of your support it is only fair that you should be able to feel growing confidence about the United Nations," said Secretary General Annan. One encouraging step, he said, came a year ago when for the first time the General Assembly included anti-Semitism among the forms of racism it wishes to eliminate.

"The United Nations will never forget its origins in the fight against fascism, and that its Charter was drafted as the world was learning the full horror of the Holocaust," he said. "This history makes it especially sad that such a gulf has developed" between the UN and Jews worldwide.

For more information, or to contact American Jewish Committee, see their website at: www.ajc.org