The United Nations on Thursday adopted an Israeli resolution
that condemns denial and distortion of the Holocaust, the Nazi genocide that
killed nearly 6 million Jews and millions of others.
اضافة اعلان
Adoption of the resolution, co-sponsored by Germany and
supported by the United States and Russia, among many others, by the 193-member
General Assembly took place against the backdrop of rising antisemitism
globally, punctuated by an attack on a Texas synagogue less than a week ago.
Israel and other sponsors called the resolution necessary
because of the profusion of misinformation and ignorance about the Holocaust
and events surrounding it, especially among the young.
The General Assembly adopted the resolution by consensus —
meaning it was approved without a country-by-country vote. Only Iran, Israel’s
most ardent adversary, objected.
The resolution’s passage amounted to an unusual, albeit
symbolic, diplomatic victory for Israel at the United Nations, where the
narrative is often perceived by Israelis to be biased in favor of Palestinians’
aspirations for their own state.
Diplomats said it was only the second time since Israel’s
founding that the General Assembly had adopted an Israeli-backed resolution.
The first was in 2005, when a resolution on establishing International
Holocaust Remembrance Day was approved. That day, Jan. 27, commemorates the
liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by Soviet soldiers in the final
days of World War II.
The vote Thursday had been scheduled to coincide with the 80th
anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, the 1942 lakeside gathering where
high-ranking Nazi leaders devised what they called the “Final Solution of the
Jewish Question,” a plan to exterminate Jews. One-third of the world’s Jewish
population, including 1.5 million children, would die under their organized
policy of gassing, shooting and slave labor in Auschwitz and at other
concentration camps established by Hitler’s Nazi regime.
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations and a grandson
of Holocaust victims, said in formally introducing the resolution that although
the atrocities had been highly documented, “we now live in an era in which
fiction is now becoming fact and the Holocaust is becoming a distant memory.”
Erdan said only about half of the world’s population had even
heard of the Holocaust and that some believe the events were a “complete myth.”
Amplified by social media, Erdan said, “Holocaust denial has
spread like a cancer; it has spread under our watch,” which had made the
General Assembly resolution necessary.
The resolution reaffirms that the Holocaust “will forever be a
warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice.”
It expresses concern about “the growing prevalence of Holocaust
denial or distortion through the use of information and communications
technologies” and urges all U.N. members to “reject without any reservation any
denial or distortion of the Holocaust as a historical event, either in full or
in part, or any activities to this end.”
The resolution also commends countries that have “actively
engaged in preserving those sites that served as Nazi death camps,
concentration camps, forced labor camps, killing sites and prisons during the
Holocaust, as well as similar places operated by Nazi-allied regimes, their
accomplices or auxiliaries.”
It also urges all UN members “to develop educational programs
that will inculcate future generations with the lessons of the Holocaust in
order to help to prevent future acts of genocide” and urges “social media
companies to take active measures to combat antisemitism and Holocaust denial
or distortion.”
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