Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

All 100 Senators Tell UN: Stop ‘Unacceptable’ Treatment Of Israel

(JTA) — All 100 members of the U.S. Senate signed a letter to the leader of the United Nations urging a comprehensive effort to remedy the organization’s “anti-Israel agenda.”

The letter, sent Thursday to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, identified four specific areas where further action could be taken rectify the “unacceptable” treatment of Israel at the world body: eliminating or reforming various standing committees focusing on issues relating to Israel, pressing the cultural agency UNESCO to stop targeting Israel, reform the Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, and reform the U.N. Human Rights Council, which has a standing agenda item that specifically targets Israel.

“Too often, the U.N. is exploited as a vehicle for targeting Israel rather than as a forum committed to advancing the lofty goals of its founders,” the senators wrote. “These actions have at times reinforced the broader scourge of anti-Semitism, and distracted certain U.N. entities from their original mission.”

The letter comes just days after Guterres, in an address to the World Jewish Congress in New York, denounced anti-Semitism and said Israel deserves to be treated at the United Nations like any other country. “As secretary-general of the United Nations, I can say that the State of Israel needs to be treated as any other state, with exactly the same rules,” Guterres said Sunday.

The letter was authored by Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Christopher Coons, D-Del.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.