Jewish groups rally against anti-Israel bias at UN

Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations launches initiative that involved over 50 Jewish groups.

By DANIELLE ZIRI
Updated: AUGUST 3, 2016 11:20
Anti-BDS summit at UN Headquarters, May 2016 (photo credit: SHAHAR AZRAN)
Anti-BDS summit at UN Headquarters, May 2016
(photo credit: SHAHAR AZRAN)
Over 50 Jewish groups joined forces this week to take action against anti-Israel bias at the United Nations and its agencies.
, which was launched by the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, consists of a formal declaration and a national and international campaign to “counteract the spate of anti-Israel actions at the United Nations.”
“For years we have witnessed and protested the escalating discriminatory practices and actions against Israel at the UN,” Conference of Presidents Chairman Stephen M. Greenberg and CEO Malcolm Hoenlein said in a statement.
“As we have seen in recent months, this bias is being manifested in outrageous and flagrant ways,” they continued.
“These actions not only distort the truth about Israel, they also undermine the principles of the UN and its charter. It has to stop.
“Despite the efforts led by the United States together with Israel and a handful of other countries, vitriolic anti-Israel rhetoric continues to intensify in UN resolutions, reports, and in the official statements from many member states,” the statement continued. “Since November 2012 the Palestinian strategy of using the UN as a weapon against Israel has led to a disturbing increase in the number of anti-Israel resolutions presented in UN bodies.”
They pointed out that resolutions adopted in the General Assembly, the UN Human Rights Council, UNESCO, the World Health Organization, and various other UN-sponsored committees and events “reveal an alarming intensification of baseless accusations and demonizing rhetoric against Israel.”
The declaration, which calls on all UN member states to recommit to the founding principles of “sovereign equality” and to “fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the United Nations Charter.”
The document urges Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon to join the effort before his term concludes on December 31.
The Conference of Presidents said it would enlist “all people of good will who want the UN to live up to the principles and values on which it was founded, to add their support and join in signing the declaration.”
Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, who has stressed the importance of fighting the anti-Israel bias in the international body regularly since he took office last fall, welcomed the Jewish groups’ initiative.
“While it is not easy to battle the bias we face at the UN on a daily basis, Israel knows that we have no better friends than the [US] Jewish community who are our steadfast allies in this fight against hate and deceit,” he told The Jerusalem Post.
The signatory organizations of the declaration include the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, B’nai B’rith, the National Council of Jewish Women, the UJA-Federation of New York, the Union of Orthodox Congregations of America and the Zionist Organization of America.