A new U.N. Watch report says the United Nations has a mixed record on combating anti-Semitism.
In its report released Thursday, the Geneva-based watchdog group said the world body has taken some important steps towards fighting anti-Jewish hatred but in other respects it has stagnated or even slipped backward.
“We need renewed commitment from U.N. officials and member states to combat anti-Semitic violence and incitement, and greater vigilance against those who, in the words of former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, ‛use criticism of Israel’s actions as a mask for anti-Semitism,” Hillel Neuer, U.N. Watch’s executive director, said in a statement.
Neuer, who presented the report’s main findings at a luncheon Thursday in New York, noted the establishment of an annual day of Holocaust remembrance and a Holocaust education program at the United Nations. But he also pointed to the continuing demonization of Israel at the Human Rights Council in Geneva and efforts by Arab states to portray themselves as victims of “anti-Semitism,” since Arabs and Muslims are of Semitic origin.
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