Israel applauds first inclusion of antisemitism in UN terror resolution

“Israel welcomes the resolution” and was “pleased to see a number of issues we had flagged,” Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan told the assembly on Tuesday.

This is the seventh such report, which the secretary-general’s office submits on the topic every two years. It was expected to be issued in 2020 but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report explained that terrorist groups are frequently motivated by hate. They are “informed by racism, neo-Nazism, antisemitism, Islamophobia or anti-Muslim intolerance, racial supremacism, ultranationalism, xenophobia, intolerance, related to sexual orientation or gender ideology and misogyny.

“Not all member states regarded such groups as a threat to international peace and security in 2020, but increasingly evidence of their transitional dimensions has been exposed through investigation, information exchange and cooperation between states,” the report explained.

The resolution on the report, which the assembly approved Friday, recognized “with deep concern the overall rise in instances of discrimination, intolerance and violence, regardless of the actors, directed against members of the religious and other communities in various parts of the world, including cases motivated by Islamophobia, antisemitism, Christianophobia and prejudice against persons of any other religion or belief.”

Erdan at the General Assembly on Tuesday said he welcomed the acknowledgment of the “upswing in hate speech and terrorist attacks targeting religious and ethnic communities, which included an explicit condemnation of antisemitism.”

He continued, “We have all witnessed antisemitic attacks against Jewish communities around the world, including, unfortunately, here in the streets of New York in recent weeks.

“It is critical that the international community take a clear stance against these attacks and develop additional tools to combat such appalling assaults against Jewish people and other groups,” he said.

Erdan also commended the UN for maintaining its prohibition on the use of human shields, as well as the focus on the Internet.

Still, he said, he opposes a provision of the report that could be used to excuse and even justify terrorism.

“Terrorism is terrorism is terrorism, and can never and should never be explained away, justified or excused, no matter what. We hope that when the next [report] update comes around in 2023, this body will adopt clear zero excuses and a zero-tolerance policy.

“Only when the international community will recognize and condemn each and every act of terrorism in no uncertain terms will we be able to fight global terrorism in an effective manner,” he said.