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

The United Nations headquarters in New York City. Image by flickr

(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.