‘Unprecedented Step Forward’: UN Security Council Explicitly Condemns Antisemitism for First Time in UAE-UK Resolution

The UN Security Council last Wednesday unanimously passed a resolution that for the first time explicitly condemns antisemitism in the 77-year history of the body, according to officials with the United Arab Emirates, which drafted the resolution along with the United Kingdom.

The resolution, officially numbered Security Council resolution 2686 on “Tolerance and International Peace and Security,” was introduced during the UAE’s month-long presidency of council and is intended to condemn violence, hate speech, and extremism, and encourages the promotion of tolerance, according to its language

The text of the resolution expresses “deep concern at instances of discrimination, intolerance and hate speech motivated by racism or extremism or directed against persons belonging to religious communities, including cases motivated by Islamophobia, antisemitism or Christianophobia…”

“Among a number of other firsts, resolution 2686 is the first UN Security Council resolution to directly refer to antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Christianophobia, and also the first resolution to acknowledge that hate speech, racism, and extremism have the potential to stoke tensions, fuel grievances, and descend into conflict,” the UAE Spokesperson said. “The resolution acknowledges these phenomena as threat-multipliers and really is an unprecedented step forward for the Council.”

Felice Gaer, director of the American Jewish Committee’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, welcomed the resolution’s condemnation of antisemitism.

“We are pleased to see that, like other human rights abuses, the relevance of antisemitism to conflict and atrocities, like genocide, has been acknowledged by the Security Council. It’s overdue but very welcome,” she said.

In a statement to The Algemeiner, the Anti-Defamation League also welcomed the resolution.

UAE Minister of State Noura Al Kaabi speaking before the meeting cited the UAE’s experience in the Middle East region as one impetus behind the resolution.

“Our approach and initiatives are based on the challenges experienced by the Arab region, including the spread of hate speech and its role in inciting, exacerbating, and prolonging conflicts,” she said.

The UAE in recent years has made significant strides in combating antisemitism and promoting its nascent Jewish community. Wednesday’s resolution cites the 2019 meeting in Abu Dhabi between Pope Francis and Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Egypt’s al-Azhar Mosque, which was the starting point for the UAE’s creation of the Abrahamic Family House religious site. 

That complex, which opened in February, includes the first newly-constructed, purpose-built synagogue constructed in the Arab world in nearly a century.

The project was first announced a year before the UAE’s decision to recognize Israel as part of the 2020 Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states.

In January, the UAE confirmed that it was adding Holocaust education to its school curriculum. That has helped contribute to what Impact-se, an Israeli education watchdog, described as the “most tolerant and peaceful Arab or Muslim majority country curriculum.”

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