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Fifty Years After ‘Zionism Is Racism’ Resolution, UN Committees Still Push Anti-Israel Agenda, Experts Warn
The United Nations headquarters building is pictured though a window with the UN logo in the foreground in the Manhattan borough of New York, Aug. 15, 2014. Photo: REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
Fifty years after the United Nations labeled Zionism as a form of racism, experts warn that the organization’s operations and committees continue to reflect the same entrenched anti-Israel mindset.
“There’s been a long-standing demonization of Israel and an entrenched anti-Zionist infrastructure within the UN,” Ben Cohen, a senior analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based think tank, told The Algemeiner.
“In some UN bodies, Israel continues to be portrayed as a colonial and racist entity,” he said. “This isn’t about Israel’s policies or actions, but about a broader narrative and institutional bias.”
In November 1975, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism — the national movement of the Jewish people to reestablish a state in their ancient homeland — with “racism,” reflecting long-standing antisemitic stereotypes and anti-Israel agendas.
In a new FDD report released last month, Cohen argues that the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP), established under the 1975 resolution, remains one of the clearest examples of the UN’s institutional bias against Israel.
Even though that resolution was ultimately overturned in 1991, the study shows how CEIRPP has continued to promote the same anti-Israel ideology.
According to Cohen, Resolution 3379 was an attack on Israel’s right to exist, empowering UN committees and agencies to adopt its anti-Zionist themes in their work on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“All these tropes are key components of the global legal and political assault on Israel, unprecedented in scale, that unfolded after the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023,” the report says, referring to the global hostility toward Israel that followed the Palestinian terrorist group’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israeli communities.
“For the past half-century, [CEIRPP] has worked to delegitimize the State of Israel by amplifying Palestinian efforts to depict the Jewish state as a ‘colonial’ and ‘apartheid’ regime,” it continues.
The newly released study also argues that the UN has violated the principle of sovereign equality of all its members for years, giving Palestinians a dedicated platform while Israel is the only member state to face such a relentless campaign.
“The UN has long acted as a willing partner with the Arab world in keeping Palestinian refugees in that status for generations,” Cohen told The Algemeiner.
As one of the UN’s main anti-Israel bodies, CEIRPP receives $3.1 million annually to support its programs and operations, according to a 2024 UN report.
Gil Kapen, executive director of the American Jewish International Relations Institute (AJIRI), explained that the UN provides little clarity on the activities of certain departments or how their funding is allocated, pointing to a troubling lack of transparency.
“In many ways, these offices are even more egregious — they are nothing more than pure propaganda, promoting the most extreme version of the Palestinian narrative: that Israel has no right to exist,” Kapen told The Algemeiner.
“We don’t believe Israel should be immune from criticism, but creating an entire institution solely to target Israel — something that doesn’t exist for any other country — is both problematic and destructive,” he continued, noting that such efforts undermine international attempts to uphold the current ceasefire with Hamas and bring a lasting end to the war in Gaza.
FDD’s study argues the committee should be dismantled, calling on Washington to lead the effort, encourage member states to withdraw, and prevent additional funds from being allocated to its work.
“As the largest donor to the United Nations by far, the United States possesses tremendous leverage, especially at a time when the [UN] faces a massive financial crisis due to the pause in US contributions,” the report says.
“By insisting on a ‘zero tolerance’ policy for one-sided and unique anti-Israel institutions, Washington can absolutely refuse to grant consensus for any budget that includes funding for these bodies,” it continues
Officially, CEIRPP operates across five main areas: promoting Palestinian self-determination, advocating for an “immediate end” to Israel’s control of territories captured in the 1967 war, mobilizing international support, coordinating with UN bodies on the Palestinian question, and engaging civil society organizations and parliamentarians to advance the Palestinian cause.
“While the committee does not directly impact the foreign policy of member states, it influences policy discussions and provides anti-Zionist NGOs with access to UN diplomats, staff, and financial resources,” FDD’s report says.
In practice, CEIRPP “promotes the Palestinian narrative and uses UN funds to act as another pro-Palestinian UN body.”
For example, the committee designated Nov. 29 — the anniversary of the 1947 UN vote to partition what was then British-administered territory into one Arab and one Jewish state — as the “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.”
“But this day has grown each year into an increasingly prominent platform for anti-Israel rhetoric, featuring speakers who compare Israel to Nazi Germany or call for a ‘Free Palestine from the river to the sea,’” the study explains.
“From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free” is a popular slogan among anti-Israel activists that has been widely interpreted as a genocidal call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Editor’s note: Ben Cohen previously worked as a seniro correspondent for The Algemeiner, covering international affairs and issues concerning the Jewish diaspora.
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Hamas-Linked Nonprofit Launches Wikipedia Training Program to Smear Israel
Avishek Das / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
A human rights organization with alleged links to Hamas has launched a new initiative to train Palestinians to edit Wikipedia pages about Israel and the war in Gaza, fueling ongoing concerns that the popular online encyclopedia promotes anti-Israel propaganda and antisemitic narratives.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a Switzerland-registered nonprofit founded in 2011, announced last week the third round of its “WikiRights” project in the Gaza Strip. According to the group’s official press release, the program will train 12 young Palestinians in human rights documentation and professional Wikipedia editing in both Arabic and English, with a focus on what it calls documenting “genocide in Gaza.”
The organization says participants will conduct field interviews with victims and witnesses and produce what it describes as “documentation-based articles” to be uploaded or incorporated into Wikipedia. The aim, according to the group, is to fill what it characterizes as “knowledge gaps” and to counter narratives it believes marginalize Palestinian accounts.
“Training young people to edit Wikipedia content seeks to transform victims of genocide in Gaza from mere statistics into storytellers, especially given the recent failures of some platforms or their complicity in not conveying the scale of genocide,” said Euro-Med Monitor’s Chief Operations Officer Anas Jerjawi.
But the initiative is drawing scrutiny in Israel and among watchdog groups who argue it represents an organized effort to shape one of the world’s most influential information platforms during an ongoing war.
NGO Monitor — an independent Jerusalem-based research institute that tracks anti-Israel bias among nongovernmental organizations — published a profile on Tuesday raising concerns about Euro-Med Monitor’s leadership and transparency. The watchdog notes that founder and chairman Ramy Abdu and former chair Mazen Kahel were listed by Israeli authorities in 2013 among individuals and entities allegedly associated with Hamas operatives in Europe. Abdu was later sanctioned by Israel under its counter-terrorism regulations.
Euro-Med Monitor has presented itself as an independent human rights body and states that it does not receive government or factional funding. However, NGO Monitor says the group does not publicly disclose detailed financial documentation, raising questions about funding transparency.
Israeli officials have long argued that Hamas and affiliated networks operate not only militarily but also through political, legal, and media channels to influence international opinion.
The WikiRights program focuses on training participants to create and edit entries related to the Israel-Hamas war, including content framed around allegations of genocide and systemic human rights violations.
Wikipedia, one of the most widely accessed reference websites globally, claims it operates under strict neutrality and verifiability policies. However, conflict-related pages, particularly those involving Israel and the Palestinians, have frequently been the subject of intense “edit wars,” coordinated campaigns, and administrative interventions.
Investigations by websites such as Pirate Wires have exposed intricate efforts by ideologically motivated Wikipedia editors to insert explosive language in reference to Israel with the implied goal of weaponizing the website’s reputation as a neutral source of information to launder biased viewpoints about the Jewish state. For instance, Wikipedia asserts that the war in Gaza is a so-called “genocide.” Editors have also softened language regarding Hamas and its Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, seemingly to depict the terrorist group in a more positive light.
Euro-Med Monitor’s press release states that the latest round of the program emphasizes “live field documentation,” encouraging trainees to interview people and incorporate firsthand accounts into articles. The organization says the goal is to transform victims “from mere statistics into storytellers.”
Critics argue that such framing signals a predetermined narrative rather than a neutral research effort.
Euro-Med Monitor’s announcement comes six months after the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform opened an investigation into the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates the Wikipedia website, demanding answers over concerns that hostile foreign actors are exploiting the online encyclopedia to insert anti-Israel or antisemitic framing designed to sway audiences.
Earlier last year, the US Justice Department warned the Wikimedia Foundation that its nonprofit status could be jeopardized for possibly violating its “legal obligations and fiduciary responsibilities” under US law. Specifically, the department expressed concern about accusations that the online encyclopedia has spread “propaganda” and allowed “foreign actors to manipulate information” while maintaining a systemic bias against Israel.
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Nearly Half of Jewish Students Report Experiencing Antisemitism on US College Campuses, Survey Finds
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
The campus antisemitism crisis has changed the college experience for American Jewish students, affecting how they live, socialize, and perceive themselves as Jews, according to new survey results released by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in partnership with Hillel International.
A striking 42 percent of Jewish students reported experiencing antisemitism during their time on campus, and of that group, 55 percent said they felt that being Jewish at a campus event threatened their safety.
The survey also found that 34 percent of Jewish students avoid being detected as Jews, hiding their Jewish identity due to fear of antisemitism.
Meanwhile, 38 percent of Jewish students said they decline to utter pro-Israel viewpoints on campus, including in class, for fear of being targeted by anti-Zionists. The rate of self-censorship is significantly higher for Jewish students who have already been subjected to antisemitism, registering at 68 percent.
“No Jewish student should have to hide their identity out of fear of antisemitism, yet that’s the reality for too many students today,” Hillel International chief executive officer Adam Lehman said in a statement on Tuesday. “Our work on the ground every day is focused on changing that reality by creating environments where all Jewish students can find welcoming communities and can fully and proudly express their Jewish identities without fear or concern.”
The survey, included in AJC’s new “The State of Antisemitism in America” report, added that 32 percent of Jewish students feel that campus groups promote antisemitism or a learning environment that is hostile to Jews, while 25 percent said that antisemitism was the basis of their being “excluded from a group or an event on campus.”
Jewish students endure these indignities while preserving their overwhelming support for Israel. Sixty-nine percent of those surveyed identified caring about Israel as a central component of Jewish identity and 76 percent agreed that calling for its destruction or describing it as an illegitimate state is antisemitic.
“While we welcome the fact that the vast majority of campuses have not been disrupted by uncontrolled protests in the past year, the data make clear that Jewish students are still experiencing antisemitism on their campuses,” Laura Shaw Frank, the AJC’s vice president of its Center for Education Advocacy, said in a statement. “This survey gives us a critical look into the less visible, but no less important problems, that Jews face on campus.”
She continued, “Understanding the ways in which Jews are being excluded and changing their behavior out of fear of antisemitism is vitally important as we work with institutions of higher education to create truly inclusive campus communities.”
The AJC and Hillel’s survey results are consistent with others in which Jewish students have participated in recent months.
According, to a recent survey of Jewish undergraduates of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), a significant portion of Jewish students still find the climate on campus to be hostile and feel the need to hide their identity over two years after the campus saw an explosion of extreme anti-Zionist activity and Nazi graffiti.
The survey, conducted by Penn’s local Hillel International chapter, found that 40 percent of respondents said it is difficult to be Jewish at Penn and 45 percent said they “feel uncomfortable or intimidated because of their Jewish identity or relationship with Israel.”
Meanwhile, the results showed a staggering 85 percent of survey participants reported hearing about, witnessing, or experiencing “something antisemitic,” as reported by Franklin’s Forum, an alumni-led online outlet which posts newsletters regarding developments at the university. Another 31 percent of Jewish Penn students said they feel the need to hide their Jewishness to avoid discrimination, which is sometimes present in the classroom, as 26 percent of respondents said they have “experienced antisemitic or anti-Israel comments from professors.”
Overall, 80 percent of Jewish students hold that anti-Israel activity is “often” antisemitic and that Israel’s conduct in war is “held to an unfair standard compared to other nations.”
College faculty play an outsized role in promoting antisemitism on the campus, according to a new study by AMCHA Initiative which focused on the University of California system. The study, titled “When Faculty Take Sides: How Academic Infrastructure Drives Antisemitism at the University of California,” exposed Oct 7 denialism; faculty calling for driving Jewish institutions off campus; the founding of pro-Hamas, Faculty for Justice in Palestine groups; and hundreds of endorsers of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
The University of California system is a microcosm of faculty antisemitism across the US, the AMCHA Initiative explained in the exhaustive 158-page report, which focused on the Los Angeles, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz campuses.
“The report documents how concentrated networks of faculty activists on each campus, often operating through academic units and faculty-led advocacy formations, convert institutional platforms into vehicles for organized anti-Zionist advocacy and mobilization,” the report stated. “It shows how those pathways are associated with recurring student harms and broader campus disruption. It then outlines concrete steps the UC Regents can take to restore institutional neutrality in academic units and set enforceable boundaries so UC resources and authority are not used to advance activist agendas inside the university’s core educational functions.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Forverts podcast, episode 6: At-risk languages
דער פֿאָרווערטס האָט שוין אַרויסגעלאָזט דעם זעקסטן קאַפּיטל פֿונעם ייִדישן פּאָדקאַסט, Yiddish With Rukhl. דאָס מאָל איז די טעמע „שפּראַכן אין אַ סכּנה“. אין דעם קאַפּיטל לייענט שׂרה־רחל שעכטער פֿאָר אַן אַרטיקל פֿונעם ייִדיש־אַקטיוויסט דזשייק שנײַדער, „וואָס אַקטיוויסטן פֿאַר שפּראַכן אין אַ סכּנה קענען זיך אָפּלערנען איינער פֿונעם אַנדערן.“
צו הערן דעם פּאָדקאַסט, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
אויב איר ווילט אויך לייענען דעם געדרוקטן טעקסט פֿונעם אַרטיקל, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ און קוקט אונטן בײַם סוף פֿון דער זײַט.
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