The UN's Antizionist Machine: 50 Years of Institutional Bias with Ben Cohen

In this episode, Naya Lekht is joined by Ben Cohen, Director of Rapid Response at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), journalist, and one of the foremost researchers on global antisemitism and antizionism. Ben's work spans the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, Tablet, the Jewish News Syndicate, and his book Some of My Best Friends: A Journey Through 21st Century Antisemitism.Together, Naya and Ben trace the deep roots of the United Nations' institutionalized hostility toward Israel, from the passage of Resolution 3379 ("Zionism is Racism") in 1975, to the simultaneous creation of CEIRPP (the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People), and how that Soviet-engineered infrastructure has outlasted the USSR itself.They discuss:The origins and mechanics of CEIRPP: What it does, what it costs taxpayers, and why it's still operating 50 years laterHow UNRWA's unique definition of refugee status, inheritable across generations, differs fundamentally from every other refugee agency in the world, and why that distinction is politically explosiveThe 1991 rescission of "Zionism is Racism" and why, despite being formally repealed, it functionally never went awayThe Durban conference of 2001 as a turning point that revived and radicalized UN antizionismCountries that have resigned from the committee - Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Ecuador — and the political dynamics that drive those decisionsWhether the UN is irredeemable on the question of IsraelThe intellectual history of antizionism: from the Soviet antizionist campaign, to Edward Said, to today's TikTok-era influencers, and how the discourse has shifted from "bistro antisemitism" to open, unashamed hatredBen's concept of "Bierkeller vs. bistro antisemitism," crude versus sophisticated Jew-hatred, and whether the distinction still holdsThe upcoming Stop Antizionism symposium in Toronto, the first conference ever dedicated explicitly to confronting antizionism as a distinct and lethal form of Jew hatredBen Cohen can be found at fdd.org and writes a weekly column for the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS).Don't Know Much About is hosted by Naya Lekht. It always starts with a question. Like, subscribe, and share on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom.