The Zionist Federation of Australia welcomes the UN resolution condemning Holocaust denial, passed overnight in New York.
ZFA President Jeremy Leibler said, “The UN was created following the horrors of the Holocaust and Second World War. But as memory of that war fades, so too do the lessons of the Holocaust among too many people. This resolution, and its encouragement of countries to implement Holocaust educational programs, will help prevent the world from forgetting the lessons of the war and the Holocaust.”
Mr Leibler continued, “We thank and congratulate the Australian Government for being a co-sponsor of this important resolution, and for Australia’s UN Ambassador Mitch Fifield’s unequivocal backing of it. It demonstrates the continuing determination by successive Australian governments to fight antisemitism.”
Mr Leibler noted, “The realities of the Holocaust – the ramifications of which are still felt so many decades later – are obvious to everyone of good conscience. Unfortunately, the Internet and social media have allowed Holocaust denial and minimisation to proliferate among the wilfully ignorant. This resolution condemns such behaviour, and encourages countries to work against it.”
However, as Mr Leibler pointed out, the UN is part of the problem of modern antisemitism. “The UN plays a key role in delegitimising Israel, and allowing those who want to foment hatred an excuse to isolate Israel and Jewish people. If the UN really did want to internalise the lessons of the Holocaust, it would stop discriminating against the world’s only Jewish state, and work to undermine those who wish to enact a second Holocaust, this time on the State of Israel.”
The resolution was passed on the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee conference, in which the Nazi leadership decided upon their ‘Final Solution’ to murder Europe’s Jews. The death camps and other measures emanating from this decision resulted in the murder of a third of the global Jewish population.
Israel was the author of the resolution. This is only the second time in UN history that an Israeli-authored resolution has been passed at the UN. The first time was in 2005; that resolution established 27 January as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The ZFA and the Israel Embassy are hosting a special discussion between the Australian Parliamentary Friends of Israel and the Israeli Parliamentary Friends of Australia to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The resolution text can be read here.