Michal Cotler-Wunsh says 'UN bears tremendous responsibility' for what's happening today
Israel's Special Envoy for Combatting Antisemitism: 'UN bears tremendous responsibility'
Israel's Special Envoy for Combatting Antisemitism, Michal Cotler-Wunsh says the growth of hate crimes against American Jews on campus, in protests and online originated from a UN resolution equating Zionism with racism.
FIRST ON FOX: JERUSALEM — Israel’s Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism Michal Cotler-Wunsh told Fox News Digital in a wide-ranging interview about the world’s oldest hatred that the modern proliferation of antisemitism in the U.S. has its origins in an anti-Israel United Nations resolution from 1975.
"We have to understand that the U.S. is experiencing such massive growth in antisemitism, and we see not only the antisemitism that fueled the atrocities of 10/7, but those that actually fueled the responses to the atrocities of 10/7 across North American campuses, on the streets and online. It is part of a decade’s-long process," said Cotler-Wunsh.
The Israeli envoy said, "The world before 10/7 and the world after it, like 9/11, cannot continue as if nothing happened."
The terrorist movement Hamas’ mass murder of 1,200 people on Oct. 7 in southern Israel is widely viewed as the Jewish state’s version of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
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Pro-Palestinian protesters tear down posters of kidnapped Israelis in New York City on Nov. 10, 2023. (Stephen Yang for Fox News Digital)
Cotler-Wunsh took the United Nations to task for passing an antisemitic resolution in 1975 that equated the founding philosophy of Israel — Zionism — with racism. The infamous "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination" resolution was revoked in 1991.
She said, "I would say the strain of antisemitism that is anti-Zionism, the negation of Israel's very right to exist across North America … began with the 1975 Zionism is racism resolution. Soviet propaganda passed at the U.N. has become mainstream across North American campuses in the name of progress."
She continued, "The U.N. bears tremendous responsibility. And if I would add to that, the post-atrocities of 10/7, the fact that no U.N. body has condemned unequivocally not the rape, not the bludgeoning, not the mutilation, not the abduction of thousands of civilians, undermining its own mandate."
When asked what can be done to fight the mushrooming forces of antisemitism, Cotler-Wunsh said, "The only way to begin to identify and combat it is, of course, to define it. And we have the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition, a working definition that is the result of a long democratic process."
According to the Israeli envoy, the IHRA definition identifies "The dehumanization, the delegitimization and the double standards applied again" to Israel.
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UN and Israel flags (Getty Images)
Fox News Digital reported in May that "As of the end of last year, a total of 1,116 global entities — from countries to companies — have adopted and endorsed IHRA's non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism, according to the Combat Antisemitism Movement. In the U.S., this includes at least 30 states and 56 cities and counties. The State and Education departments did the same under the Trump administration."
While the Biden administration accepted the IHRA definition, it has faced criticism for accepting a less comprehensive definition of antisemitism called the Nexus Document.
The mushrooming presence of antisemitism on social media platforms was also singled out by Cotler-Wunsh as a major challenge for the campaigners against Jew hatred.
"I believe all digital spaces, just like all real-world spaces, university campuses, cities and countries, have a responsibility to identify and combat antisemitism comprehensively," she said.
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Pro-Palestinians rally in New York City on Oct. 8, 2023. (Peter Gerber for Fox News Digital)
She continued, "[S]ocial media platforms, including Twitter and Facebook and Google and YouTube, all social media platforms, actually have protected characteristics. And they have community guidelines that protect all kinds of groups and minorities and individuals."
She said, however, the exception is with "a mutation of antisemitism" in which the word "Zionist" is used as a code word, in antisemitic ways, to attack Jews.
Speaking to Fox News Digital on Sunday, she noted, "Just this morning, the supreme leader of Iran, Khamenei, in fact, continues to peddle his antisemitic rhetoric and hate against what he calls the Zionist regime, Israel. He calls consistently for the murder of Zionists Jews, and that is when all other groups receive protection according to community guidelines." She urged legislators and the public "to hold to account all social media platforms to utilize the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition to create a transparent policy."
"Free Palestine" graffiti is shown with a swastika on a food truck in Montauk, New York. (Splash News)
She said the IHRA definition had identified "antisemitic posts that continue to not only support genocide and calls to annihilate the state of Israel from the river to the sea but actual calls to murder Jews around the world, on campuses and in whatever cities we see."
The Palestinian slogan, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," has been advocated by terrorists and far-left groups to mean a Muslim state will replace Israel.
Elon Musk, the owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, announced this month, "As I said earlier this week, ‘decolonization,’ ‘from the river to the sea’ and similar euphemisms necessarily imply genocide. Clear calls for extreme violence are against our terms of service and will result in suspension."
Cotler-Wunsh said, "And what we know very well today is that what happens online does not remain online. It has real-world harm and real-world violence, whether it's the massacre in a synagogue in Pittsburgh or whether it's what we see on the streets right now."
The Israeli envoy urged traditional media "to create a platform on which we expose antisemitism. And it's critical not just for Jews and not just for their nation state, Israel. It is critical because this threatens the very fabric of our democracies, the very fabric of any society that cherishes life and liberty."
Fox News Digital was the first major news organization to devote a webpage called "Antisemitism Exposed" to countering the hatred of Jews.
Cotler-Wunsh stressed the role of Iran’s regime as the leading state-sponsor of lethal antisemitism: "The Islamist regime of Iran that tells us openly its intent to build a caliphate on the rubble of our civilization alongside with its allies [Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad] … tells us of their complete dedication to annihilate what we know of as Western or democratic values."
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This Jewish deli was vandalized with a swastika in New York City. (Instagram/@2ndavedeli)
She added, "That is not going to end with just the destruction of the state of Israel or the murder of Jews. And that is why the exposure of antisemitism and 10/7 has given us not only the atrocities of what was perpetrated on that day but the responses to the atrocities perpetrated on that day that justified the terrorism attack and the attacks on Jews around the world after the massacre."
"10/7 is a tipping point,"Cotler-Wunsh concluded.
Benjamin Weinthal reports on Israel, Iran, Syria, Turkey and Europe. You can follow Benjamin on Twitter @BenWeinthal.
