Jerusalem Post - 06.12.2004

Jerusalem Post

UN to hold first-ever conference on anti-Semitism

By Melissa Radler

As the force behind the United Nations' first-ever conference on anti-Semitism, UN undersecretary-general for communications and public information Shashi Tharoor is inviting a dozen speakers to UN headquarters on June 21 to tackle one of humanity's longest-enduring hatreds. 

Tharoor, an Indian-born official who is quick to note that his home state of Kerala plays host to the oldest Jewish community outside Israel and that his first girlfriend was Jewish, argues that while anti-Semitism may be a rising problem across the globe, at the 58-year-old organization on Turtle Bay, it does not exist. 

"There are speeches I know some delegates have made, in the human rights commission and elsewhere, that involve the blood libel and things like that," Tharoor said in a recent interview. However, "there are 191 member states. I cannot believe that the essential character [of the UN] is somehow nullified by, say, one resolution or three hostile speeches." 

When it comes to UN staff, "I've never heard a bigoted remark in this organization and I think it's partly that if people have that kind of mind-set, they wouldn't work here," he said. 

Tharoor said he began to press for the day-long conference, titled "Confronting Anti-Semitism: Educating for Tolerance and Understanding" after reading an article that accused the UN of failing to deal with the issue. "We had numerous frank discussions last year about articles on the subject written by Anne Bayefsky and other scholars," confirmed Eve Epstein, a consultant to the UN's department of public information. 

The article, "The UN and the Jews" published in Commentary magazine in February by Bayefsky, an adjunct law professor at Columbia University, tracked some of the more virulent anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric that has emanated from member states and UN officials. Several months earlier in the Wall Street Journal, Bayefsky criticized UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan – who, along with Bayefsky, is slated to address the June 21 conference – for ignoring requests during the General Assembly's fall session to weigh in on resolutions condemning anti-Semitism and calling for the protection of Israeli children from terrorism. The resolutions were eventually withdrawn. 

"The unwillingness of the UN's principal organs and its secretary general to confront and take meaningful action against this scourge, including its Muslim and Arab sources, is not merely a sin of omission," Bayefsky wrote. 

While anti-Zionism and using Israel as a pretext for anti-Semitism, and state-sponsored anti-Semitism in the Arab world are not topics at the conference, Tharoor said he wants the event to remain non-political and did not invite government officials – several speakers said they plan to raise the issues in their remarks. 

"You cannot have a discussion of anti-Semitism today that is limited or geographically censored," said the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's task force against hate, Mark Weitzman. "I think that anti-Semitism in the UN at a minimum reflects the level of anti-Semitism in the world, and in some ways it may even intensify it. The fact that the UN is finally attempting to do something about it is a positive." 

The executive vice president of the World Jewish Congress, Elan Steinberg, said that WJC president Edgar Bronfman plans to press for an annual UN report on manifestation of anti-Semitism; the adoption of a resolution condemning anti-Semitism based on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's recent "Berlin declaration" and the appointment by Annan of an assistant or special rapporteur on anti-Semitism. 

Tharoor said he views the conference as the first event in a series called "Unlearning Intolerance" and that a future event may deal with Islamophobia. "I see this very much as an exercise in airing issues and raising awareness. I don't see this as a kind of political meeting to end with a negotiated declaration," he said. "If you want a manifesto I'll give it to you in one sentence: anti-Semitism is wrong." 

Speakers include Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman, New York Board of Rabbis president Joseph Potasnik, and Imam Abdul Faisal Rauf, president of the American Sufi Muslim Association. Elie Wiesel is slated to give the keynote address. 

Israel's deputy permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador Arye Mekel said, "If the UN wants to prove that it is fighting anti-Semitism it should do something about it, and indeed this is a first step.