Remarks by the High Representative
for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations
on the Launch of the United Nations Action Plan to Enhance Monitoring and Response to Antisemitism
17 January 2025, New York
Thank you, Farhan
Good morning everyone,
I am delighted to be here today to announce the launch of the United Nations Action Plan to Enhance Monitoring and Response to Antisemitism
The Action Plan, guided by the leadership of the Secretary-General , is the sum of efforts spanning over the past months in collaboration with several United Nations entities
Antisemitism is a toxic ideology with deep roots in bigotry and racism that still plagues our world manifesting itself in different forms.
In ten days from today, Eighty years would have passed after the Holocaust. But antisemitism is still persistent in many parts of the world. It is our collective responsibility to eradicate antisemitism, and all forms of bigotry, hatred and discrimination.
Dear members of the press,
I was honored to be designated by the Secretary General in 2020 as the UN Focal Point on Monitoring Antisemitism and Enhancing a System-wide Response, with a clear mandate to build on and strengthen existing work by the United Nations and further develop recommendations for action points to carry this work forward.
The United Nations was created in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Racism and racial discrimination are an affront to the core values entrenched in the Charter of the United Nations and a violation of our common humanity. In fact, racism and bigotry in all their manifestations, are a violation of everything that the United Nations stands for.
Antisemitism is a global scourge that must be addressed .
Therefore, our efforts to counter it, as with all manifestations of extremism and incitement to religious hatred and violence, will benefit from a comprehensive approach that engages all stakeholders including state and non-state actors. This should recognize that the principle of universality is a cornerstone of international human rights law, embodied in the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The root causes of religious intolerance, hate crimes, including verbal and physical attacks on persons based on their religion or belief, or their places of worship and their sacred sites, must be addressed.
The United Nations has long worked on addressing antisemitism. Building on the numerous efforts undertaken by the UN over past decades, this Action Plan aims to ensure an even more coordinated and effective response to counter antisemitism.
The Plan which is focused on the United Nations system – our organization – is divided into 6 chapters plus an annex.
In the next few minutes , I will walk you through
Chapter 1 is the Secretary General’s Foreword.
Chapter II is my preface.
Chapter III provides a short background and the understanding of antisemitism.
Chapter IV highlights the normative framework which served as a foundation for its work against antisemitism including the Declaration of Human Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of racial Discrimination (ICERD), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and many others as well as the United Nations General Assembly Resolutions demonstrating resolve to counter antisemitism through outreach about the Holocaust and countering Holocaust distortion and denial
Chapter V provides detailed recommended actions for enhancing the United Nations Monitoring and Response to Antisemitism. These action points include:
1) Establish a United Nations Monitoring and Evaluation Working Group to monitor and evaluate the impact of policies and measures to address antisemitism
2) Enhancing awareness and understanding of antisemitism among United Nations personnel
3) Promoting implementation of this Action Plan on the UN’s monitoring and countering antisemitism
It’s our aim to Mainstream the Action Plan across United Nations policy frameworks, knowledge management and programming activities.
My office for example is working on launching a series of dialogues to exchange views on good practices on countering religious intolerance and bigotry. Each series will be tailored on one specific form of bigotry: one of these episodes will be focused on antisemitism.
I will also continue to speak out against antisemitic incidents as I did since my designation as the UN Focal point.
As the Secretary-General puts it in his foreword to the Action Plan: “No form of prejudice or hatred should find a home anywhere. We will not rest until they have been banished for good.”
Let’s support each other and stand together in our fight against antisemitism by finding a way forward to a shared, safe, and inclusive future for our human family.
The Action Plan is now posted on our website ( link).
I thank you.
