AJC Report Regrets U.N. Member States Are Deaf To Annan's Call For New Era In Treatment Of Israel

American Jewish Committee
Thursday, 8 October 1998

Release of "One Sided: The Intensified Campaign Against Israel in the United Nations," Is Part of AJC'S Continuing Public Education Effort To End Discrimination Against Israel at the World Body

Although U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has publicly recognized the history of discriminatory treatment by U.N. member states toward Israel, members have failed to heed his call for "a new era of relations between Israel and the United Nations."

This is among the conclusions of a just-released special American Jewish Committee report, One Sided: The Intensified Campaign Against Israel in the United Nations, which summarizes key resolutions on the Arab-Israeli conflict in the General Assembly's 1997-98 session and provides tables that catalogue every member country's votes.

The foreword to the report, jointly authored by Felice Gaer, AJC's Director of International Organizations, and Jason Isaacson, AJC's Director of Government and International Affairs, cites Mr. Annan's speech made in Israel in 1998 in which he urged universal condemnation of "baseless allegations" against Israel, such as the charge by the Palestinian observer at the Commission on Human Rights in 1997 that Jews were infecting non-Jewish children with the HIV (AIDS) virus. Secretary Annan further called for the "broader fight against anti-Semitism to be addressed," and urged member states to use this year -- the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- to "denounce anti-Semitism in all its manifestations."

Mr. Isaacson and Ms. Gaer lament that "events at the General Assembly in the months following Annan's remarks suggested that the world body was deaf to his plea for progress."

This year's publication -- a follow-up to last year's report entitled "One Sided: The Ongoing Campaign Against Israel in the United Nations" -- also includes an appendix written by Ms. Gaer on "Issues Related to Anti-Semitism at the 1998 Session of the Commission on Human Rights."

The report continues: "After the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords and until September 1996, the United Nations General Assembly curbed its habit of isolating and condemning Israel, and Israel alone, over issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict.…But beginning in 1996, there emerged a heightened virulence in attitudes, speeches, number of resolutions, and actions against Israel in the U.N. General Assembly….This year, the campaign to delegitimize Israel itself has re-emerged in full force, and the most shrill language has returned to the Assembly's meetings and resolutions."

"For decades, the world body has been enlisted -- by the Arab states, variously allied with non-Western and Western states -- to serve as an agent for one-sided criticism of the policies of the government of Israel, in assessing and seeking to mitigate the Arab-Israeli conflict. Criticism of governments is nothing new at the

United Nations. But the relentless focus on Israel has been unparalleled in its size, scope, persistence and intensity."

Among items of significance noted in the AJC publication:

**While there have been only ten Special Emergency Sessions convened in U.N. history -- the most recent on the Israeli residential housing project under construction in the East Jerusalem area known as Har Homa -- there have never been any for issues such as genocide in Cambodia or Rwanda, famine and mass refugee flows throughout the African continent, aggression by Iraq, or massive crimes against humanity in the wars in Afghanistan, former Yugoslavia, Sudan, or anywhere else.

**The upgrading of the status of the Palestinian observer mission to the U.N. to permit it to introduce resolutions, and to speak and participate in U.N. meetings more fully. Palestinian representatives renewed their old challenge to the credentials of Israel as a participant in U.N. sessions, focusing on an effort to end recognition of Israel as responsible for events in any of the territories.

**Echoes of the notorious 1975 "Zionism is racism" resolution have reappeared in the proceedings of bodies that report to the General Assembly.

**On numerous measures, the General Assembly was asked to take sides in matters that are at the center of bilateral talks between Israel and the Palestinians, or that are subject to bilateral negotiations between Israel and Syria.

"In 1997-98 as in years past, no other country was subject to the relentless, indeed obsessive, attention that was focused on Israel in the General Assembly and other U.N. bodies," the AJC report observes. "No other country was the subject of an even remotely similar number of critical resolutions, agenda items, committees of the Secretariat, and intolerant remarks….The repetitive and ongoing attacks against Israeli policies, which intensified in the 52nd Session, have fostered a climate of vilification not only of Israel but of Jews in general.

"The tone, virulence, and intolerance of General Assembly resolutions on Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict undermines the U.N.'s credibility."

In addition to releasing this report, the AJC has stepped up its public education campaign to urge Israel's acceptance as an equal member of the United Nations system, eligible to sit on the Security Council and other key U.N. bodies. To date, Israel remains the only member state ineligible to do so because it has been denied acceptance into any regional group.

Israel's treatment in the United Nations was a major item on the agenda at just-concluded meetings AJC leaders conducted with heads of state, foreign ministers, and other senior officials from 49 nations, gathered in New York for the opening of the General Assembly. On September 23, AJC ran a full-page advertisement in the New York Times that included mail-in coupons addressed to the representatives of the current, immediate past, and future presidencies of the European Union (Austria, the United Kingdom, and Germany, respectively). The same ad ran in the International Herald Tribune on September 19-20, and in numerous newspapers, magazines and periodicals around the country. In addition, these messages can be accessed and sent via AJC's website at www.ajc.org

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