February 18, 2022
With only the Islamic Republic dissenting, the 193-nation UN General Assembly approved a resolution January 20 condemning any denial of the Holocaust and urging all nations and social media companies “to take active measures to combat antisemitism and Holocaust denial or distortion.”
The world body approved the resolution by consensus without a vote. Iran “dissociated” itself from the resolution. No other country did so.
Speaking immediately after Israel’s ambassador introduced the resolution, Iran called on all UN members to oppose the text. “My delegation fully dissociates itself from the draft resolution,” a junior Iranian diplomat told the body. He said Israel “routinely attempts to exploit the suffering of Jewish people in the past as cover for the crimes it has perpetrated over the past seven decades against the regional countries, including all its neighbors without exception,” although none of them opposed the resolution.
The resolution, however, said nothing about Israel. It simply condemned any denial of the Holocaust as “increasing the risk” that similar mass murders will occur.
The ambassadors of Israel and Germany, in a joint statement, stressed the significance of the resolution’s adoption on January 20. It was the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference where Nazi leaders coordinated plans for the so-called “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” at a villa on the shores of Berlin’s Wannsee Lake in 1942.
The resolution, cosponsored by 114 nations, requests the UN and its agencies to continue developing and implementing programs aimed at countering Holocaust denial.
Iran accused Israel of being “the only apartheid regime in the world” whose ideology is based on the two main drivers of World War II, “racism and expansionism.”
Unlike Security Council resolutions, General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, but reflect global opinion.