22 July 2025 Resigning? And How About an Apology?!
Under the threat of American sanctions, three members of the UN committee for defaming Israel resigned this week. Do three fewer “mosquitoes” signal that the swamp is drying up?
Victory? Champagne? Maybe just for a moment but nothing more. You decide:
The Six-Day War caught the UN unprepared—that is, unprepared to accept the fact that the Jewish state would survive after all. Following the victory, the organization rushed to establish a permanent committee to investigate Israel’s crimes in the “occupied” territories, with members representing three countries that have no diplomatic relations with Israel. Since then, for 56 years, the committee has presented the UN General Assembly with an annual one-sided report on Jewish wrongdoings, in the spirit of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Such a committee is unique to Israel alone! There is no genocide, mass murder, apartheid, occupation, war, natural disaster, or any other catastrophe in the world that has justified establishing a permanent committee with an open mandate. Jewish crimes—they are above all other troubles of the world.
But it turns out that one committee cannot contain all of the UN’s anti-Israeli obsession, and in 2021, after Operation “Guardian of the Walls,” it was decided to establish a second permanent committee, more extreme, more aggressive, and more blatant, with a similar occupation: investigating Jewish crimes throughout all Israeli territories. Three declared anti-Semites were tasked with the mission: Navi Pillay from South Africa (“Sanctions must be imposed on Israel’s apartheid regime”), Chris Sidoti from Australia (“The IDF is one of the world’s most criminal armies”), and the Indian Miloon Kothari (“The Jewish lobby controls the world”).
And so, under the logo of a unifying global vision, a workshop was built for blood libels and anti-Semitic hypocrisy: accusing Israel of imaginary “ethnic cleansing” while ignoring the real ethnic cleansing of Jews in all Arab countries. Accusing Jews of “war crimes” while ignoring the real perpetrators of war. Defining every targeted elimination of a terrorist as “genocide” while ignoring real massacres in the region, including the October 7th massacre itself. Accusing Israel of aggression while ignoring the belt of terror built around it and Iran’s explicit declarations of its desire for a second Holocaust.
The special committee was entirely immersed in the diplomatic undermining of Israel’s right to defend itself, using fabricated lies, moral superiority, and preaching about human rights – coming from the mouth of South Africa’s representative, a human rights superpower where an average of 50 people are murdered daily and every third woman is raped.
Now the circus of hypocrisy faces a difficult hour. After years of pro-Hamas hate propaganda and proven success in pushing the prosecutor in The Hague to act against Israel and its leaders, the three committee members announced their resignation this week. Pillay, who heads it, attributed this to her advanced age (82), but the timing of the announcement leaves no room for doubt: this is about fear of personal American sanctions, as recently imposed on the UN’s special anti-Semitic envoy, Francesca Albanese.
It’s too early to celebrate. The help from our good friends in the White House is important and moving, and represents a refreshing change from what we’ve grown accustomed to in the past. But the road is still long: three fewer mosquitoes, but the swamp is alive and breathing!
The UN, which is supposed to protect against antisemitism, marches joyfully at the head of its perpetrators, and even now we cannot expect fair treatment from it. The committee will probably be staffed by other anti-Semites and will continue to operate alongside its “big sister” – the older rebuke committee, and in cooperation with other UN frameworks and their supporters. We have no choice but to decide that our survival is preferable to the world’s sympathy, and to believe that a just journey on a long road, while maintaining our Jewish and human values, will prove itself in due time.
By: Anat Vidor, WIZO President
