First UN Session Opposing Anti-Semitism Hosted

The UN dedicates another meeting against anti-Semitism, showing how a global rise in violence is spiraling in attack of Jews. Half the UN member states attended it, in which some surprise speakers such as the Saudi ambassador, who said that anti-Semitic crimes were as bad as Islamophobia.

 "Faulting the Jews is once again becoming the rallying cry of a new order of assassins," French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy said in a keynote address to UN states on Friday. He denounced what he called a "radical inhumanity" in a rising hatred towards Jews, according to rt.com.

Another speaker, US Ambassador Samantha Power, asked nations to take a stand against "this monstrous global problem." She pointed out the anti-Semitic incidents in the US too and showed a few statistics in an FBI report, that expressed how two-thirds of religion-based crimes in 2012 were opposed to Jews.

"When the human rights of Jews are repressed, the rights of other religious and ethnic groups are often not far behind," she said.

The plan for the session started last October in response to the murder of three people outside the Jewish Museum in Brussels, Belgium, and the killing of a rabbi and three children in Toulouse, France, according to Time.com.

A good surprise was Saudi Arabia's Ambassador Abdallah Moualimi, who was a representative of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation. He gave a voice to the Islamic countries' denunciation of actions giving the direction "to hatred, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia."

Moualimi equated Islamaphobia with anti-semitism, pointing out how everyone has witnessed with "growing concern the increase in hate crimes" everywhere. It was a matter of concern that many did not stick to their responsibilities, he said.

"Anti-Semitism and Islamaphobia and all crimes that are based on religious hate are inextricably linked, they're inseparable," he averred.

He pointed to a close connection between "the increase in hate crimes, extremism, and violence and anti-Semitism" and Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory, political crises, economic recession and policies that benefit only the powerful players. Moualimi concluded that a dialogue would be the most effective step to resolving these issues.

On the other hand, Levy called upon the attending UN members to come up with new ways of working against anti-Semites, including those who called Israel an "illegitimate state" and denied the Holocaust: "It is up to you, who are the faces of the world, to be the architects of a house in which the mother of all hates would see its place reduced ... May you in a year's time, and in years after that and every other year, reconvene to observe that the mobilization of today was not in vain."

The meeting was informal, as only half of the 193-member states were present.

Assembly spokesman John Victor Nkolo agreed that for the first time, a UN meeting had been focused only on anti-semitism. Thirty-seven UN members wanted it and sent a letter requesting it to the assembly President Sam Kutesa on October 1. All the countries said that they were opposed to "an alarming outbreak of anti-Semitism worldwide."

Incidentally, the meeting came in the wake of the deadly Charlie Hebdo terror attacks in France, which included a hostage situation in a Paris kosher store. Gunman Amedy Coulibaly, who claimed that he was acting in order to take revenge against Middle-East "attacks on Muslims", killed four French Jewish hostages at the store before he was shot by the police.

The main anti-Semitic crimes first surged in the past summer, even as Israel started its 50-day war in Gaza. Over 2,000, mostly Palestinians were killed, and it provoked a lot of global recrimination.

In Europe, the attacks started with physical assaults and went on to firebombing of synagogues as well as calls for violence against Israelis. In Germany, the Jews even put up armed guards at its doorsteps just before the Yom Kippur celebrations in the Fall, according to media reports.

There were many other deadly attacks, included the shooting at the Jewish Museum in Belgium, where at least three people died, as well as the Jewish school in southwestern France, which killed a teacher and three children.