On December 18, 1992, the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. This year marks the 30th anniversary of that declaration which recalls that such minorities often “suffer disproportionately from the effects of conflicts resulting in the violation of their human rights and are particularly vulnerable to forced displacement through, interalia, population transfers, revocation of previously held identity documents, refugee flows and forced relocation.“

The history of Jews around the world is proof of this sentiment. They have been the most persecuted religious group in every country in which they’ve lived over many centuries.

The reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in their homeland was supposed to put an end to such discrimination. Finally ruling over themselves, Jews were not going to be subject to the rash of anti-Semitic edicts passed by many countries such as banning kosher meat, banning circumcision, forcing Jews to give live in ghettoes, expulsions, forced conversions, limiting their fields of employment, etc.

Alas, people of ill-will have inverted the situation of the Jewish State in an accusatory fashion, claiming that Israel should be censured for supposedly discriminating against the one-quarter of its population that is non-Jewish. While roughly one-eighth of the vast Muslim world abuts Israel, anti-Zionists shout the slur of “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” at the Jewish State, even while it affords its non-Jewish citizens full rights far in excess of any of its neighboring countries, and where the Muslim population has soared – both in excess of the Jewish population and outpacing Muslims in adjacent countries.

Christianity	2,380 million	30.8%
Islam	1,910 million	24.8%
Hinduism	1,160 million	15.0%
Buddhism	570 million	7.4%
Folk Religions	430 million	5.6%
Other religions	61 million	0.8%
Judaism	15 million	0.2%
No religion	1,190 million	15.4%

World religious populations

Today, 85% of the world belongs to an organized religion. The majority are Christian, although forecasts predict that Islam will catch up with Christianity by 2050. There are dozens of Christian-majority countries and fifty Muslim-majority ones, with more expected.

In sharp contrast, Jews, the most persecuted religious group in history, make up less than 0.2% of the global population. Roughly half of them, about 7 million, live in the State of Israel, immediately surrounded by 140 million Muslims. That’s a neighborhood where Muslims outnumber Jews by 127 times.

To consider an analogy, if one were to go to a mall with 500 parking spaces, there would be an equivalent of 4 spots for Jews and 496 for Muslims. By way of comparison, US regulations would require 10 spots be allocated for handicap people, or 2.5 times as many. If one were to stand amongst the ten handicap spots, it would look like the mall has many spots for this subset of the population but to look on a broader basis, one sees that the allocation is very small.

*Israel is surrounded by most of the Muslim world. Just among its immediate neighbors, Jews are outnumbered by 127 times.*

According to the United Nations own goals in the Declaration, Jews must have the right to pray at their holiest site of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, as “fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion,…. [noting] that the constant promotion and realization of the rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, as an integral part of the development of society as a whole and within a democratic framework based on the rule of law, would contribute to the strengthening of friendship and cooperation among peoples and States.”

As it relates to organizations and countries that seek to boycott Israel and its supporters, the declaration asserts that “Persons belonging to minorities have the right to establish and maintain, without any discrimination, free and peaceful contacts with other members of their group and with persons belonging to other minorities, as well as contacts across frontiers with citizens of other States to whom they are related by national or ethnic, religious or linguistic ties.” The BDS movements targeting Jews and Jewish groups that support Israel, such as the one passed by Berkeley Law in August 2022, clearly run afoul of the UN action meant to protect marginalized groups, and to help foster friendship and cooperation.

*The anti-Semitic public chant to “Globalize the Intifada” is an illegal direct incitement to violence against Jews, but was not prosecuted in the US or elsewhere.* Absolution Via Inaction.

The fundamental reality is that Jews in every country and in the one Jewish State are simultaneously regional and global Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities that must be protected by every single member state of the United Nations.