A senior United Nations official this week was caught peddling an antisemitic libel concerning shadowy Jewish world domination.
In an interview with the far-left American blog Mondoweiss, Miloon Kothari claimed that a powerful “Jewish lobby” controls major social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Given that most people today get their news from social networks, Kothari’s was a modern twist on the old canard that Jews control the press.
What makes the remark all the more troubling is that Kothari is a member of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Territories, the world body’s unprecedented permanent investigation into any and all allegations of Israeli crimes.
The commission’s head, Navi Pillay, has made similar conspiratorial comments in the past, bolstering the perception that the deck has been stacked against Israel with open antisemites.
Israel Prime Minister Yair Lapid was quick to condemn Kothari, and to demand that the commission of inquiry that would include a conspiracy theorist such as himself be immediately disbanded.
A statement tweeted by Lapid’s spokeswoman, Keren Hajioff, read:
“The international community should be outraged by Miloon Kothari’s antisemitic comments. His racist remarks about ‘the Jewish Lobby’ that controls the media and his questioning Israel’s right to exist as a member of the family of nations—echo the darkest days of antisemitism.”
Hajioff added that the committee on which Kothari sits is “the epitome of moral hypocrisy” and “makes a mockery of the UN Human Rights Council’s own supposed standards of independence and impartiality.”
Speaking for her boss and for the government of Israel, Hajioff concluded:
“The evidence is clear: this illegitimate and biased Commission must be disbanded and its commissioners disqualified from UN work.”
The international community should be outraged by Miloon Kothari’s antisemitic comments.
His racist remarks about “the Jewish Lobby” that controls the media & his questioning Israel’s right to exist as a member of the family of nations — echo the darkest days of antisemitism.
— Keren Hajioff (@kerenhajioff) July 28, 2022
With reporting by JNS.
