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It’s Time to Abolish the UN’s Pro-Hamas Bureaucracy
Delegates react to the results during the United Nations General Assembly vote on a draft resolution that would recognize the Palestinians as qualified to become a full UN member, in New York City, US, May 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
JNS.org – We are currently experiencing the worst surge of antisemitism in living memory. But that realization shouldn’t lull us into thinking that the world prior to October 2023 was a relative bed of roses for the Jewish people. From the end of the Second World War until the Hamas massacre in Israel, there were myriad episodes and events which underlined that hatred and suspicion of Jews as a collective did not die out with the Nazis.
Later this year, we’ll mark the 50th anniversary of one of the most heinous of those outbursts, whose fallout we are still living with: the passage by the U.N. General Assembly of Resolution 3379 of Nov. 10, 1975, which determined that Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jews, was a form of racism.
Israel and its allies have eight months to decide whether that anniversary will be marked as a posthumous victory or as a day of mourning.
Sure, one could argue that victory already came in 1991 when, in the wake of Iraq’s expulsion from occupied Kuwait and the consequent US attempt to convene regional peace negotiations, American diplomacy—which, in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, was without a serious rival—secured the General Assembly’s repeal of its 1975 resolution. But that, sadly, was a fleeting victory for two reasons.
Firstly, the anti-Zionist ideology underpinning the resolution persists. Orchestrated by the Soviet Union, Resolution 3379 denounced Zionism as a “threat to world peace and security.” It drew an explicit linkage between Israel and the former white minority regimes in South Africa and Zimbabwe to demonstrate its charges of “racism” and “apartheid.” Those charges will sound eerily familiar to Jewish college students now weathering the pro-Hamas onslaught, all born long after 1975.
Secondly, while the General Assembly annulled Resolution 3379, the pro-Palestinian bureaucracy created within the United Nations at exactly the same time also persists. As a result, the world body still behaves as though “Zionism is racism” remains on the books. If the November anniversary is to carry any message of hope for Israelis and Jews, then it’s imperative to tackle and dismantle that bureaucracy, and its associated propaganda operation.
In the 18 months that have lapsed since the Hamas pogrom in Israel, we have seen that bureaucracy in action. UNRWA—the agency originally created in 1949 to deal with the first generation of Arab refugees from Israel’s War of Independence—has been a mainstay of anti-Israel messaging, unphased by the unmasking of dozens of its employees as Hamas operatives. The U.N. Human Rights Council, which dedicates an entire agenda item to Israel alone at its thrice-yearly deliberations while ignoring serial violators like Russia, Iran and North Korea, last week released a litany of fabricated accusations in the guise of a “report” that amounted to what Israel called a “blood libel.” One of the more noxious Israel-haters on the scene, Francesca Albanese, continues to serve as the U.N. special rapporteur on the “Occupied Palestinian Territories.”
It’s now time to focus on those elements of the Palestine bureaucracy that are comparatively hidden. The U.N.’s Department of Political Affairs operates a subsidiary Division for Palestinian Rights, whose job is to carry out the agenda of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, consisting of 25 members and 24 observers drawn from the member states. Abolishing that committee, and therefore the division along with it, should become an explicit aim of the State of Israel, the various Jewish non-governmental organizations with observer status at the United Nations, and the broader community of research and advocacy organizations pushing for Israel’s sovereign equality within the U.N. system.
The committee was created on the very same day as the passage of the “Zionism-is-racism” resolution to give concrete expression to the anti-Zionist manifesto the resolution embodied. The “inalienable rights” that this committee represents include the “exercise by Palestinians of their inalienable right to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted.” Note the terminology used here—not “Palestinian refugees of the 1948-49 war,” but all Palestinians, including those born after 1948 in the Arab world, Europe, North America and Latin America. It doesn’t take tremendous insight to realize that it is a formula for the elimination of Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel—the very same formula that drives the present pro-Hamas solidarity movement and gives it the undeserved gloss of human rights.
The costs of running this committee are estimated at $6 million annually. As I wrote a few months after Donald Trump’s first-term presidential inauguration, “In international organizational terms, that’s unremarkable, but when you consider how the money is spent, it’s little short of obscene. One would like to imagine that fact is one that President Trump will grasp instinctively, and act upon accordingly.” Trump’s dislike of bloated, politically charged bureaucracies hasn’t wavered in the interim. For that reason and assorted others, it is reasonable to expect that when former New York Rep. Elise Stefanik is finally confirmed as the administration’s choice as ambassador to the United Nations, she will make dismantling the committee a priority.
Last September, when the General Assembly passed a resolution demanding Israel’s immediate withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, warning that the Jewish state “must bear the legal consequences of all its internationally wrongful acts,” Stefanik issued a scathing response. “The United Nations overwhelmingly passed a disgraceful antisemitic resolution to demand that Israel surrender to barbaric terrorists who seek the destruction of both Israel and America,” she stated. “Once again the U.N.’s antisemitic rot is on full display as it punishes Israel for defending itself and rewards Iranian-backed terrorists.”
The “rot” Stefanik was referring to is (as she no doubt realizes) institutionalized and structural, embedded within the organization’s heart for 50 years, if not longer. In 1965—two years before the Six-Day War brought Israel control of the West Bank, Gaza and eastern Jerusalem—the Soviets insisted at the drafting sessions for the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination that a condemnation of “Zionism” be included alongside “Nazism” and “antisemitism.” As the Israeli scholar Yohanan Manor observed, the convention debates “showed the Arabs and the Soviet Union that it was possible to have Zionism condemned if they could just find a way to secure the support of the Afro-Asian bloc.”
Ten years later, they achieved just that with the passage of Resolution 3379. How would the abolition of the committee be achieved? Many years ago, the late American diplomat Richard Schifter told me that “a significant number of ambassadors in New York vote against Israel without instructions from their governments. Because these resolutions involve budgetary questions, they require a two-thirds majority vote under the provisions of the U.N. Charter. So the answer to the problem is that you reach out to heads of government. You get them to give instructions to the ambassadors on how to vote.”
There is now a precedent for that: In August 2020, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky withdrew his country from the committee just a few months after his election. Given its commitment to protecting Israel within the United Nations, and its associated agencies and departments, the United States must pursue the same outcome with as many states as possible—between now and November and, if necessary, beyond.
The post It’s Time to Abolish the UN’s Pro-Hamas Bureaucracy first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Tucker Carlson Launches Docuseries Exposing the ‘Truth’ About 9/11 After Previously Saying He ‘Hates’ 9/11 Truthers
Tucker Carlson speaks on July 18, 2024 during the final day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Photo: Jasper Colt-USA TODAY via Reuters Connect
Media personality Tucker Carlson announced late last month a new five-part documentary series supposedly exposing the “truth” about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, after previously saying he “hates” the 9/11 truther conspiracy theories about al Qaeda’s suicide attacks on US soil.
“For nearly 25 years, the true story on 9/11 has been withheld from the American people. Why? We decided to find out for ourselves,” Carlson, a popular right-wing podcaster, posted on X, announcing the documentary series.
The first episode of the series was released on Thursday, the 24th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in which nearly 3,000 people were killed on US soil.
The announcement video claims that “the official story on 9/11 is a complete lie” and that “the 9/11 commission is a cover-up.” Carlson adds that “the 9/11 report is a joke.”
For nearly 25 years, the true story on 9/11 has been withheld from the American people. Why? We decided to find out for ourselves.
Get all 5 episodes of our documentary series at https://t.co/sLkXnGLauL on September 11. pic.twitter.com/ozRykv6vY8
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 28, 2025
Carlson, a controversial commentator and online provocateur, claims that the documentary will expose what truly happened, including what the US and foreign governments knew in advance.
The line about foreign governments is said in the video while a picture of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flashes across the screen, seemingly suggesting Israel was part of an alleged cover-up related to 9/11.
Carlson’s documentary was released just days after he said he would like to share “condolences” with the family of Osama bin Laden, the late al Qaeda leader who organized the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
Video has also surfaced showing that Carlson previously suggested that those who spread conspiracy theories about 9/11 are “parasites.” He lambasted those who have claimed 9/11 was an inside job and said “there isn’t any” evidence to support the claim. Carlson also previously said he “hates” when people try to say 9/11 was some sort of cover-up, and that while he is open to theories about most events, those about 9/11 go too far.
Tucker Carlson Calls 9/11 Truthers “Parasites” pic.twitter.com/Cc4lOePGCG
— 𝕊𝕙𝕒𝕞𝕤 (@drandelson) March 11, 2023
Carlson has made a series of controversial comments in recent months, drawing criticism even from conservatives and Republicans.
For example, Carlson drew outrage for platforming Holocaust revisionist and self-described historian Darryl Cooper last year. During their discussion on his podcast, Cooper appeared to downplay the Holocaust, argued that the US was on the “wrong side” of World War II, and suggested that the slaughter of six million Jews in concentration camps was “humane” because the Nazis did not have food to feed the “prisoners of war.”
In December, Carlson invited economist Jeffrey Sachs onto his podcast for a lengthy interview in which both men gave credence to the idea that Israel “controls” US foreign policy. Another, more recent guest floated the idea the US should have allied with Nazi Germany during World War II, saying, “It turns out I think the story we got about World War II is all wrong … one can make the argument that we should have sided with Hitler and fought Stalin.”
Carlson has criticized Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, repeatedly accusing the Jewish state of “blowing up churches and killing Christians.” He lambasted American Christian political leaders for “not being more critical of the destruction in Gaza.”
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Antisemitic Graffiti Strikes New York University Days Into New Semester
Illustrative: A student puts on their anti-Israel graduation cap reading “From the river to the sea” at the People’s Graduation, hosted for Mahmoud Khalil and other students from New York University. Photo: Angelina Katsanis via Reuters Connect
An unknown person graffitied antisemitic messages inside the Weinstein residence hall at New York University on Tuesday evening, prompting school president Linda Mills to issue a statement condemning antisemitism and imploring students to uphold the institution’s values.
“The targeting of a Jewish student is inexcusable raw hatred,” Mills wrote in a letter, shared with The Algemeiner by NYU spokesman John Beckman, to the campus community. “As a campus we must speak with a single voice in condemning this act — a terrible violation of our community’s rules and norms. We are providing support to the victim.”
She added, “NYU has a zero-tolerance policy towards antisemitism and other forms of hatred …We are committed to maintaining a community where all feel safe and welcome, to eliminating antisemitism and other forms of hatred. We ask everyone to join us in this effort to uphold our values and send an unambiguous signal about the kind of behavior we won’t stand for in our community.”
Mills also said the incident is being investigated by the NYU’s Campus Safety officers and the New York City Police Department (NYPD).
According to Washington Square News, an independent student newspaper which first reported Tuesday’s incident, NYU had seen another antisemitic only days earlier when a Jewish student’s mezuzah was stolen and later “voluntarily returned” under circumstances the university has not disclosed.
New York University was one of the first major higher education institutions to reform its disciplinary code to respond to the Jewish community’s concerns about rising antisemitism.
In 2024, it updated its Non-Discrimination and Harassment Policy (NDAH), including in it language which identified “Zionist” as a racial dog whistle that sometimes conceals the antisemitic intent of speech and other conduct that denigrates and excludes Jews.
The updated NDAH listed numerous examples of the use of “Zionist” in perpetrating discriminatory behavior, including, “excluding Zionists from an open event, calling for the death of Zionists, applying a ‘no Zionist’ litmus test for participating in any NYU activity, using or disseminating tropes, stereotypes, and conspiracies about Zionists” as well as “demanding a person who is perceived to be Jewish or Israeli to state a position on Israel or Zionism, minimizing or denying the Holocaust, or invoking Holocaust imagery or symbols to harass or discriminate.”
NYU went further, recognizing that Zionism is central to the identities of the world’s roughly 15.7 million Jews, an overwhelming majority of whom believe the Jewish people were destined to return to their ancient homeland in the land of Israel after centuries of exile. “For many Jewish people, Zionism is a part of their Jewish identity. Speech and conduct that would violate the NDAH if targeting Jewish or Israeli people can also violate the NDAH if directed toward Zionists,” the university said.
The NDAH covered examples of behavior that have occurred across the US, both on and off college campuses, especially since the launch of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023.
Last year, NYU paid an undisclosed sum of money to settle a lawsuit brought by three students who sued the school for responding, allegedly, to antisemitic discrimination “with deliberate indifference.”
In resolving the case, NYU avoided a lengthy civil trial which would have revealed precisely who and which office received but failed to address numerous reports that — according to the court documents filed in November 2023 — NYU students and faculty “repeatedly abuse, malign, vilify, and threaten Jewish students with impunity” and that “death to k—es” and “gas the Jews” were chanted by pro-Hamas supporters at the school.
In May of this year, however, university officials withheld the diploma of a graduating student at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study who lied to the administration about the content of his commencement speech to conceal its claim of a genocide taking place in Gaza, an anti-Israel falsehood propagated by neo-Nazi groups and jihadist terror organizations.
“NYU strongly denounces the choice by a student at the Gallatin School’s graduation today — one of over 20 school graduation ceremonies across our campus — to misuse his role as student speaker to express his personal and one-sided political views,” university spokesman John Beckman said in a statement at the time. “He lied about the speech he was going to deliver and violated the commitment he made to comply with our rules. The university is withholding his diploma while we pursue disciplinary actions.”
He continued, “NYU is deeply sorry that the audience was subjected to these remarks and this moment was stolen by someone who abused a privilege that was conferred upon him.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Canada vs Israel Davis Cup Match in Halifax Will Be Closed to Fans Due to ‘Safety Concerns’
Israeli athletes competing in the Davis Cup 2025 Qualifiers Israel vs. Germany. Photo: IMAGO/Paul Zimmer via Reuters Connect
A series of Davis Cup World Group matches between Canada and Israel will be played this weekend in Halifax in a closed venue without any fans in attendance due to safety concerns, organizers announced Tuesday.
Tennis Canada said its decision to close off the Canada vs Israel matches on Friday and Saturday was made in consultation with the International Tennis Federation in light of “escalating safety concerns” by local authorities and national security agencies. The games were originally scheduled to take place at the Scotiabank Center, but it remains unclear if the venue is being changed. The series of matches will determine which country advances to the 2026 Davis Cup Qualifiers.
“Intelligence received from local authorities and national security agencies, combined with disruptions witnessed at other recent events both in Canada and internationally, indicated a risk of significant disruption to this event,” Tennis Canada explained. “Ensuring the safety of everyone involved, including athletes, fans, staff, volunteers, and minors, such as ball kids, remains our top priority.” Ticket holders will receive a full refund within 30 days.
Tennis Canada CEO Gavin Ziv said the “difficult decision” was made to maintain the organization’s “responsibility to protect people while ensuring that this Davis Cup tie can still take place.”
“We were forced to conclude that playing behind closed doors was the only way to both safeguard those involved and preserve the event itself,” Ziv explained. “While this outcome is very disappointing, it allows the tie to proceed in Halifax and ensures that our athletes can continue to compete at the highest international level. We are looking forward to returning to Halifax with Team Canada in the coming years to ensure we can fulfill our mission of promoting tennis and creating opportunities for fans and players to engage with the sport in Nova Scotia and across the country.”
Media will also not be allowed to attend the games. Halifax Regional Police did not say if the Israeli team received direct threats but noted that its local officers will be present at the games, according to the Associated Press. The tie will be broadcast on television on TVA Sports, and available for viewing online via CBC Sports’ livestream on CBC Gem, Cbcsports.ca, and the CBC Sports YouTube channel.
The Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs criticized the decision. “We all want to know: Are we a nation governed by peace, order, and good government? Or do we let fear and intimidation dictate our way of life?” CIJA wrote in a post on X.
“Cheering for Team Canada is part of what it means to be Canadian. Yet, a small group of extremists have hijacked the Davis Cup, silencing thousands of fans — many of whom traveled from afar — who simply wanted to show pride in their country,” CIJA CEO Noah Shack said in a separate statement. “Tennis Canada’s decision was made to protect Canadians in the face of serious threats. It is unacceptable that hate, harassment, and intimidation have made it unsafe to support our athletes in our own country.”
Tennis Canada faced pressure last month from hundreds of anti-Israel activists — including Canadian athletes and academics, and Olympic runner Moh Ahmed — to cancel the Davis Cup match-up with Israel because of its military actions in the Gaza Strip during the Israel-Hamas war. Both ITF and Tennis Canada insisted that Israel will not be banned from the competition.