Kerby Anderson

The latest controversy at the United Nations over comments by the Secretary-General is a reminder of how many times the UN has taken an anti-Israel stance. Senator Ted Cruz believes the Secretary-General should resign and adds that “many aspects of the UN, like the Human Rights Council and UNRWA are either antisemitic or give cover for terrorism or both.”

While there may be some debate about the recent comments, they come after decades of false accusations against Jews in general and Israel in particular. For example, the 1975 UN resolution passed by a majority of UN member states equated Zionism (the founding philosophy of the state of Israel) with racism. The resolution eventually was overturned but was used to justify actions against Israel.

Back in the 1980s, New York Mayor Ed Koch referred to the UN as a cesspool. That was when the UN passed an anti-Israel resolution because the country occupied the Golan Heights to prevent rockets from being launched into northern Israel.

The late Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Abba Eban once joked, “If Algeria introduced a UN resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.”

As I mentioned in my booklet on antisemitism, always blaming Israel is irrational. “Israel is about the size of New Jersey and is surrounded by Arab countries with more than 500 times the land area.”

Israel realized long ago that it could not depend upon the United Nations to defend it. This latest controversy with the UN is just another reminder of that fact.