Human Rights Voices has released a major new report about a little-mentioned issue: NGOs, accredited by the UN, that violate its charter by promoting hate.
The introduction to the paper explains the importance of the matter:
The United Nations was founded as a global pact among states, but over the decades – in the name of transparency and openness, and in order to further the aim of globalization – the UN has opened its doors to non-governmental organizations. More than 6,150 NGOs have been invited to participate on a year round basis in UN activities, and have thus been handed a coveted global megaphone. An examination of these NGOs, however, reveals that both by design and gross negligence on the part of UN member states, the NGOs’ ranks include bigots, antisemites, and terrorist advocates who are now spreading hatred and inciting violence from the world stage.Democratic states, led by the United States, control the purse strings of the United Nations either from within the UN bureaucracy or through domestic policy. Getting serious about combating the spread of intolerance and violent extremism means putting an immediate stop to the use and abuse of the United Nations to broadcast and support xenophobia and its lethal consequences.
In theory, the UN has processes for accreditation that share a common requirement: respect for the purposes and principles of the UN itself. In order to qualify for accreditation or association, NGOs must operate in conformity with, or promote, the UN Charter. They must affirm “faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small.”
In practice, accredited non-governmental organizations have been allowed to flaunt the core of the UN mission by advocating terror and intolerance. At the same time, they have been permitted to draw closer to the world of international diplomacy and gain access to the international media platforms associated with it.
Most striking for an organization founded on the ashes of the Holocaust, the UN enables its accredited NGOs to play a central role in promoting modern antisemitism. Although the preamble of the UN Charter promises the equal rights of nations large and small, UN-accredited NGOs foster the destruction of the UN member state of Israel.
The benefits of UN accreditation for NGOs are tangible and significant. UN-accredited NGOs are able to secure meeting space within UN buildings to sponsor speakers, mount exhibits, and screen films, all within immediate proximity to the world’s press. Major media organizations from across the planet have in-house office space at UN headquarters in New York and Geneva. NGOs can speak at important UN meetings and have their words translated and broadcast globally via UN webcasts, which are then archived for the public, researchers, and students from elementary schools to college campuses. UN-accredited NGOs can submit written statements to UN bodies that are assigned official UN symbol numbers, posted on UN websites, and archived in searchable formats for the global community. More recently, UN websites have started linking directly to NGO websites, greatly enhancing traffic to the NGO websites and the promulgation of the NGOs’ messages. UN-accredited NGOs are also invited to attend negotiating sessions and decision-making forums, thereby gaining access to the world’s diplomatic corps, with the attendant opportunities for influence.
The links between UN-accredited NGOs and the promotion of terrorism and hatred – including, in particular, antisemitism – violates the terms and conditions of these NGOs’ accreditation. In some cases, these NGOs were originally accredited by UN bodies in spite of these links. In other cases, while these links may have developed after the original accreditation processes, UN bodies – despite conducting mandatory periodic review processes – permit such NGOs to retain their UN status while violating the fundamental principles of the institution.
Generally, UN accreditation or association is done either through the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) or the Department of Public Information (DPI). In the case of Israeli-related matters, it can also be acquired through the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP). The qualifier for UN-NGO accreditation is that “the aims and purposes of the organization shall be in conformity with the spirit, purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations” – in the case of ECOSOC accreditation; “support and respect the principles of the Charter of the United Nations” – in the case of DPI association; and “support the Charter of the United Nations” – in the case of accreditation by the CEIRPP.
There are thousands of UN-accredited NGOs and the report enumerates a large number of statements by these organizations that are antisemitic, incite to violence and hate:
“The media is under the control of Zionist organisations…My question is: which is stronger, is it the law or the Zionist project?” – from Meezaan Center for Human Rights, Accredited with Special Consultative Status by ECOSOC,
-from Islamic Human Rights Commission, Accredited with Special Consultative Status by ECOSOC and accredited by CEIRPP.
[T]here are certainly some aspects of Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians that bear a clear resemblance to the Nazis’ oppression…“Genocide” — defined by the UN Convention as the intention “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group” — most aptly describes Israel’s efforts, akin to the Nazis’, to erase an entire people. – from Women for Palestine – Australians for Palestine, Accredited by CEIRPP
“[T]he world that Zionists made, according to their ideal of Jewish sovereignty… is a world of segregation, with Jews on top.”from Friends of Al-Aqsa, Accredited by CEIRPP
– from Palestine Solidarity Campaign – Thailand, Accredited by CEIRPP
There are hundreds of such examples, and essentially any anti-Israel NGO can get accredited by the UN. Even NGOs that are acknowledged to be antisemitic by other NGOs, like “If Americans Knew”, are accredited by the CEIRPP, and which has written “The Talmud states that…two contrary types of souls exist, a non-Jewish soul comes from the Satanic spheres, while the Jewish soul stems from holiness…”
This is a hugely important report that identifies how the UN is actively promoting terror, hate and antisemitism – and how it is violating its own principles and rules by doing so. The only way to stop this is for the US to withhold funding from the UN unless it revamps its NGO-accreditation system from scratch.
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