“Apart from certain private letters written in response to non-governmental organizations, we were unable to find any public action of substance taken by Ms Arbour against anti-Semitism,” states a report released last week by Geneva-based UN Watch. “Ms Arbour holds one of the world’s leading moral pulpits and her potential influence is significant. She has the power to draw public attention to the evils of anti-Semitism and should do so.”

The UN Watch document, titled The United Nations and Anti-Semitism, 2004-2007 Report Card, lauded some senior UN officials for speaking against Holocaust denial and rebuking Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But it found “most worrying… the UN’s record [of] an intensification of one-sided, redundant and irrational measures that taken together, form an infrastructure to demonize and deligitimize the Jewish state.”

The report accused the General Assembly of a “double standard” for passing an “extraordinary amount of… resolutions singling out Israel for condemnation.” It also stated the UN Human Rights Council descended to “unimaginable lows, with no less than 100 per cent of its condemnatory resolutions passed against Israel – at the expense of tackling all of the world’s worst abusers.”

The report was presented to the Yale Club in Manhattan and later at Yale University’s Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism. It found “progress in some areas.”

It noted in particular that former Secretary  General Kofi Annan issued a call to action on anti-Semitism during a seminar on the topic at UN headquarters in June 2004. In his speech, Annan said “the human rights machinery of the United Nations has been mobilized in the battle against anti-Semitism, and this must continue. I urge the special rapporteurs on religious freedom and on contemporary racism, working with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights… to actively explore ways of combating anti-Semitism more effectively in the future.” He also called on “our friends in civil society to keep us up to the mark.”

Hillel Neuer, the Montreal-born executive director of UN Watch, said the report is the first substantial evaluation of UN resolutions that demonize Israel. It also traces how those resolutions are linked to anti-Semitism.

In that context, Arbour’s lack of action has been “deeply disappointing.” After meeting her, “I felt she was sensitive to the issue.” But when UN Watch and 40 other NGOs asked her to speak out against Ahmadinejad’s call to wipe Israel off the map, Arbour’s response was a private letter. “That’s not enough. It’s a sign it’s not treated as very important,” Neuer said. “We know the UN, despite its deficiencies, is the leading voice of world opinion.”

A strong statement by Arbour would lend international legitimacy to the efforts against anti-Semitism. “Her words go around the world,” Neuer said. “We don’t believe anti-Semitism will be solved [by her statement], but public figures have a role to play seeking action for human rights and anti-Semitism. Our hope is that it will start a conversation on what the UN needs to do on anti-Semitism.”

Arbour served as a judge in the Supreme Court of Canada and is former chief prosecutor of the international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Arbour’s office did not reply to a request for an interview.

The UN Watch report found the United Nations response to anti-Semitism uneven. There were “several unprecedented advances, mostly concerning remembrance of the Holocaust” under Annan’s leadership. “These include the establishment of an annual UN day for Holocaust commemoration, the General Assembly special session on the liberation of Auschwitz and the creation of a UN Holocaust education program.

“At a minimum, these effort serve as a counter to Holocaust denial, a pernicious form of anti-Semitism that has become a global campaign led by the government of Iran.”

The report also noted “several positive steps to combat anti-Semitism” by senior UN officials. Racism expert Doudou Diene confronted Iran for its anti-Semitic statements, and freedom of religion expert Asma Jahangir has been outspoken on anti-Semitism.

Both officials jointly protested an anti-Semitic drawing in a Saudi Arabian state-controlled newspaper, but “both experts… failed to recognize that this phenomenon was hardly an isolated case, but rather a pattern and practice of anti-Semitic propaganda that is prevalent throughout the region,” the report stated.

Neuer said the report also examines the Islamic campaign to appropriate the term “anti-Semitism” and argue it is only applicable to Arabs as semites.