Ian Williams
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs / August-September 2023
Taken as a whole, the UN system is a mélange of principles and sordid pragmatism which can be inspiring, nauseating or infuriating, and often all three simultaneously. There are indeed some UN staff, agencies and offices that can insulate themselves from the ever-present pressures of member states and lobbies, not least on Middle Eastern issues. On the bright side, at the end of June the High Commission for Human Rights issued its updated directory of international companies profiteering from the occupation or working from settlements [<https://tinyurl.com/2ryhe43u>]. The list does not propose action against the companies; it merely lets the world know which companies are working in illegally occupied territory, which makes the howls of outrage before and after its publication more than slightly puzzling unless you are tuned to the hypersensitivity of pro-Israeli advocates.
The original list of offending companies had been frequently postponed under intense U.S. pressure. Many Human Rights High Commissioners have been on the firing line for calling out Israeli human rights failures. These corrosive streams of complaints against any incumbent official who does not cover for Israel are very effective in ensuring nonrenewal of their appointment and sometimes effective in preemptively tempering criticism.
In these circumstances it is almost surprising that the UN is still holding the line against the “pitchfork and flaming torch” mobs who bay “anti-Semitism” at critics of Israel. In particular cynical observers are impressed that Secretary General António Guterres has not yet succumbed to the relentless pressure to endorse the tendentious definition of anti-Semitism promulgated by the self-appointed International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
Friends of Israel have been relentless pushing the IHRA “definition,” which soon lived down to suspicions by showing that its purpose was not to combat the isolated examples of anti-Jewish prejudice but to stigmatize protests against Israeli government behavior. Since the original IHRA draft had not had quite enough wiggle room to include criticism of Israeli human rights abuses, they helpfully interposed a series of “examples” tipping the scales to make almost any objection to Israel an example of anti-Semitism.
In a sort of legislative legerdemain, the “examples” were like quantum particles popping in and out of existence. If anyone objected, they were only “examples,” so it was anti-Semitic to quibble about such minor details and thus impede the cause, but otherwise it was “gotcha!” as suggested by the insistence on their inclusion.
However, many in the field, including drafters of the original IHRA, saw which way the pitchforks were pointing and crafted the Jerusalem Declaration to refine it. There was so much concern that the IHRA definitions and examples pilloried opponents of Israeli practices that lawyers, including some of its original drafters, drew up the Jerusalem Declaration, which was more tightly drafted to protect legitimate criticism from witch hunts. Critics who have tried to exclude the examples in the IHRA or suggested adopting the Declaration are now at risk of charges of anti-Semitism themselves.
Ambassador Gilad Erdan, the Israeli representative to the UN, plays a key role in pushing IHRA adoption in the UN, which further confirms the political nature of the move. Showing immense tolerance for actual anti-Semitism by feudal signatories to the Abrahamic Accords and by the political heirs of the wartime Hungarian Arrow Cross, he pushed the IHRA fervently on the UN
It was probably the pro-Israel lobby’s failure to get the High Commission to adopt the IHRA and its “clarificatory examples” that led to the backdoor attempt by the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Ahmed Shaheed, the former Maldivian foreign minister, to go another route: after sedulous courting by and discussions with pro-Israeli lobbyists and the U.S. State Department, he sidled it into UN discourse and gave it his wholehearted endorsement.
These wordsmiths knew what to smuggle into the reference, not least because the blades they were forging would ensure an even more prolific torrent of anti-Semitism charges. Now that the IHRA definition has a toe in the door with his report, we can already see where it will be cited in other UN and international declarations to lend it a borrowed authority.
Words may be less effective than sticks and stones in breaking your bones—but the IHRA small print has already been trialed very effectively in Germany and the UK—and indeed with Human Rights Watch to fracture the careers of academics and politicians like British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn or HRW’s Ken Roth. While the IHRA has no statutory power in international law, legislators around the world have incorporated its definitions into local codes to stifle protest.
Special Rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed’s support for the IHRA is assured of multiple broadcast, but the words of Professor E. Tendayi Achiume, the fifth Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, are unlikely to get the Israel echo chamber treatment. “I highlight the controversial status, divisive effects and negative human rights impacts of the IHRA working definition on anti-Semitism,” she said about her final report to the committee.
As if to validate her, Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, called the report and the remarks by Achiume “a disgrace.” “These ill-founded recommendations made by the rapporteur are not in line with and are not part of her mandate,” he inveighed, leading a pile on by all the usual suspects among completely unbiased pro-Israeli organizations—like the U.S. State Department.
The message is clear: the IHRA will soon be deployed against UN agencies and officers as well. Obviously Palestinian rights defenders must be aware that their opposition to the IHRA definition will be presented as anti-Semitic, so it is time to ask: “What is wrong with the Jerusalem Declaration? Why are the IHRA examples so important to you?” And keep asking, since silence has consequences.
UN correspondent Ian Williams is the author of UNtold: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War
