As Secretary-General Kofi Annan strives to improve the United Nations’ relations with Israel and the Jewish world, Jewish leaders praise his efforts but say much remains to be done. The U.N. secretariat hosted 50 Jewish officials from 24 countries around the world this week. It was Annan’s latest effort to reach out to the Jewish community.
Vic Alhadeff, CEO of the Jewish Board of Deputies in New South Wales, Australia, captured a common reaction to the meetings.
He credited Annan with trying sincerely to change U.N. culture to ensure fairer treatment of Israel, but noted that “you still have the same imbalances when it comes to voting on issues relating to Israel.”
There’s “a long, long way to go,” Alhadeff said.
The two-day exchange between Jewish and U.N. officials comes as Annan presses for reform of the United Nations. It also follows several recent gestures by the United Nations to the Jewish community, as Annan emphasized to the group.
He noted a U.N. conference on anti-Semitism last June, a commemorative General Assembly session in January devoted to the Holocaust and Annan’s appearance at the inauguration of Israel’s new Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.
“Today the United Nations, the State of Israel and Jewish communities around the world have reached a new level of confidence and mutual understanding,” Annan told the International Delegation of Jewish Leaders on Monday afternoon.
While much remains to be done, “the trend is unmistakable,” he said.
The new conciliatory approach was praised by the delegation, whose visit was arranged by the U.N. Foundation and the American Jewish Committee’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights.
The delegation is a traditional feature of the AJCommittee’s annual Washington conference, which was to take place this year on May 3 to 6. The delegation was headed to the conference Tuesday afternoon after the U.N. meetings.
The U.N. meetings to address issues including anti-Semitism, Israel’s treatment at the United Nations and human rights were folded into this year’s program.
Among the officials with whom the group met were Terje Roed-Larsen, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process; Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Dan Gillerman; and Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein, Jordan’s U.N. ambassador.
On May 12, U.N. officials will meet with another Jewish delegation when B’nai B’rith International holds its second annual U.N. mission with activists from around the world. The group will meet with dozens of U.N. officials to address human rights and treatment of Israel at the world body.
Johanna Mendelson-Forman, senior program officer for peace, security and human rights at the U.N. Foundation, said this week’s meetings with Jewish leaders help fill a gap in the U.N.’s relationships with its constituencies.
“The relationship has had a long and rocky history, which we also feel this secretary-general has done a lot to ameliorate,” Mendelson-Forman said.
With U.N. reforms under way and this delegation en route to the United States, it seemed a good opportunity to show the domestic and international Jewish community that Annan “means what he says when he says the U.N. is a home for all Jews,” she said. “He is eager and willing to talk about the issues that surround the U.N.-Israel relationship.”
Karen Mock, executive director of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, took Annan up on that willingness.
When she was affiliated with B’nai Brith Canada, Mock chaired the caucus of Jewish nongovernmental organizations at the 2001 U.N. World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa.
The event devolved into a display of virulent anti-Semitism, prompting both Israel and the United States to walk out of the conference. Most notorious was the preliminary conference held by the NGOs, where some activists held signs stating that Hitler should have finished the job.
Mock asked Annan about reform measures aimed at the NGOs, and was gratified that he pledged to examine ways to achieve a more effective relationship, she said.
Several delegation members from other countries took advantage of the visit to learn from American Jewry.
“We see the importance of the political culture of American Jewry, which we need in Europe, because we are not strong enough and we are not as structured as American Jewry is,” said Leon Masliah, adviser for the umbrella organization of synagogues in France. “For us, it’s regenerating to be with them.”
For Elijah Jacob, country manager in India for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the mission offered a chance to forge connections with Jewish leaders from around the world.
He also hopes to encourage Indian officials at the United Nations to support Israel.
Some U.N. officials hoped to gain from the meetings with the delegation as well.
At a reception Monday night thrown by the U.S. mission to the United Nations, a German diplomat asked a German Jewish official if he would press the United States to get Germany a coveted seat on the U.N. Security Council, the only U.N. body with binding legal authority.
Nathan Kalmanowicz, an official with the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said, “Jews all over the world, we’ve got the same problems” — fighting anti-Semitism and protecting Israel.
“My agenda here is to be part of the Jewish world. Not more — not less,” he said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
