The Board of Governors of the United Nations Association (UNA) has unanimously adopted a resolution which objects to anti-Semitism at the UN, the International Council of B’nai B’rith reported.
In a letter to Dr. Harris Schoenberg, director of UN Affairs for the International Council, Robert Ratner, president of the UN Association, stated that at its last meeting, the UNA-U.S. Board acknowledged that “certain attacks against Israel” at the last General Assembly “degenerated again into blatant anti-Semitism.”
The Association’s Board added that it is “disturbed that surprisingly few delegations bothered to object.” (Only Israel and the United States did in fact denounce the anti-Semitic rhetoric.) “But the Secretary General (Javier Perez de Cuellar) did issue a timely statement which took issue with the use in the General Assembly of epithets and slurs of a racial, religious or personal nature, even in the heat of the debate.”
The UNA Board resolution concluded with a strong endorsement of the Secretary General’s appeal “to all members to refrain from language unbecoming to serious international debate.”
The Board instructed the UNA-USA staff to distribute the resolution widely, including to UN Missions and the national organizations affiliated with the Association. Ratner thanked Schoenberg for bringing this matter to the UNA’s attention.
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