U.N. Says No to Jews on Anti-Semitism Day 
By Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff
June 21, 2004 
NewsMax
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/6/21/101557.shtml http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/6/21/101557.shtml 
The U.N.'s conference on anti-Semitism marks a first for the world body.
The daylong conference on Monday was called by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to examine the issue of anti-Semitism and how it affects the international community. 
Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel was called upon to give the keynote address. 
However, if the U.N. is truly interested in addressing anti-Semitism, it should examine the following facts: 
Never in the history of the organization has the United Nations ever honored the sanctity of any Jewish holiday. 
The U.N. is closed for many Christian and Islamic holidays. Easter, Christmas and the Id (a Moslem holiday following Ramadan) are but a few of the holidays for which the U.N. closes. 
In September 2000, Yom Kippur (the Jewish day of atonement), the holiest day of the Jewish year, fell on the opening day of the U.N. General Assembly's annual debate. 
President Bill Clinton was slated to address the U.N. forum on the day in question. 
When the White House realized the religious significance of the date, it asked the U.N. to delay the GA's opening for one day. 
The U.N. said no. 
Clinton was a no-show. Embarrassed, the U.N. then rescheduled his appearance for the following week. 
The General Assembly was also the same body that officially equated Zionism with racism. 
Currently, nowhere in the U.N.'s executive administration is any Jewish official to be found. The highest-ranking Jew to ever serve in the U.N. was former New York Governor Herbert H. Lehman, who held an undersecretary-general's post in the organization's early years. 
Kofi Annan's special representative for international security, Lakhdar Brahimi (Algeria), who recently helped form Iraq's interim government, told reporters that he took pride in never having had to shake the hand of a Jewish official. 
That brought a rare and public rebuke by the U.K.'s U.N. ambassador, Sir Emyr Jones Parry, who told NewsMax that Mr. Brahimi should not traverse the minefields of the region and stick to his assignment [Iraq]. 
To the U.N.'s private dismay, Washington has often assigned American Jews to the U.N. ambassador's post: 
Among several of the Jewish U.S. ambassadors to the U.N. were Arthur Goldberg, Herbert Okun and Richard Holbrooke. 
Every year, the U.N. General Assembly holds a special session on the Palestinian question. 
In the session's promotional materials, a map of Israel is referred to as Palestine (as it also is on the official letterhead of the Palestinian Authority). 
A former East European ambassador on the Security Council confided that as a Jew working at the U.N. he was uncomfortable with the anti-Semitism he found permeating the organization. 
It makes no difference if you are from Israel or not, the United Nations is no friend of the Jews, he once confided.