The United Nations (UN) recently unveiled its “Action Plan to Enhance Monitoring and Response to Antisemitism,” prompted in part by the targeting of Jews and Jewish institutions globally. However, critics have dismissed the plan as inadequate.

Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and president of Human Rights Voices, denounced the Action Plan as a “phony exercise in futility,” alleging its creation by a body she considers the leading global purveyor of antisemitism, merely a pretense of combating antisemitism.

Developed by the UN Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), the plan stresses the importance of understanding antisemitism in combating hatred. Paradoxically, the plan notably omits a definition of antisemitism.

While referencing but not adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition—endorsed by 45 member states and widely accepted by major Jewish organizations—the plan’s omission is attributed to the definition’s acknowledgment of the link between antisemitism and Zionism/Israel.

Bayefsky criticized the UN’s inconsistency, highlighting its usual emphasis on victims defining their own experiences of discrimination, yet failing to apply this principle to Jews.

UNAOC Director Nihal Saad explained the absence of a definition, emphasizing the plan’s focus on understanding antisemitism and responses to it, rather than engaging in potentially distracting definitional debates.

Saad drew a parallel to the UN’s Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, developed despite a lack of universal consensus on terrorism’s definition. This analogy was challenged by Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior advisor to the Counter Extremism Project and former UN Monitoring Team coordinator, who described the counter-terrorism strategy as “a mess.”

While acknowledging some effective UN counter-terrorism efforts, Fitton-Brown highlighted the UN’s struggles in identifying groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis as terrorist entities due to the lack of a universally agreed-upon definition. He cited the UN’s condemnation of the Houthis after an attack but its failure to label them a terrorist group as an example. The UN’s response to Hamas, particularly regarding the October 7th attack, was also deemed a significant failure stemming from definitional ambiguity.

Bayefsky characterized the UN Security Council’s failure to condemn Hamas for the October 7th attack due to disagreements on the definition of terrorism as “a malevolent dereliction of duty.”

The Action Plan proposes training modules to help staff recognize and understand antisemitism and mandates that senior UN officials continue to denounce antisemitic manifestations. Bayefsky criticized these plans as fundamentally flawed, given the UN’s failure to define antisemitism.

Bayefsky further asserted that the UN’s highest levels fail to combat anti-Jewish prejudice, citing UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ silence on antisemitic behavior within the UN, despite his public condemnations of antisemitism. She highlighted the cases of Francesca Albanese and Navi Pillay, both criticized for antisemitic remarks, and the Secretary-General’s claim of being powerless due to their alleged independence.

Saad clarified that special rapporteurs act independently and their views don’t necessarily reflect the UN’s stance. Similarly, Farhan Haq, spokesperson for Guterres, confirmed the Secretary-General’s lack of authority over independent experts and his non-interference in their remarks, while reiterating the Action Plan’s focus on staff education.

Bayefsky concluded that the UN cannot effectively combat antisemitism without acknowledging its own role and offering a mea culpa.

Neither Navi Pillay nor Francesca Albanese responded to inquiries regarding the allegations of antisemitism.