While the global Jewish community is always targeted by groups that falsely label UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs)is as a "Jewish plot" for world domination, that Agenda has received increasing severe criticism from within Jewish intellectual and political circles.
Jonathan Tobin, the editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS), is a prominent critic. He links "the failure of international bodies" to "woke ideology and broader moral failures", arguing "they contribute to rising antisemitism".
Eric Cohen, executive Director of the Tikvah Fund, is against the "social justice movements often aligned with the UN agenda", saying "they frequently abandon truth and traditional Jewish identity in favor of radical political agendas".
Michael Sasson, a Jewish commentator, argues that "progressive, globalist trends within the UN are responsible for a surge in antisemitism and a misrepresentation of Israel in international law".
Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, frequently highlights "the UN's institutionalized bias against Israel, arguing that commissions and conferences are used to demonize Israel rather than protect human rights".
Melanie Phillips, a British journalist and author, criticizes "globalist initiatives like Agenda 2030 for undermining national sovereignty and promoting a secular, technocratic worldview".
In Portugal, David Garrett from the Jewish Community of Porto says "Judaism frames moral opportunities as obligations and duties, whereas the Western UN framework tends to focus on rights. It is more than necessary an International Declaration for Human Duties, and now, because rights mean nothing if detached from a concrete definition of duties, as weel as Freedom with a capital L does not exist, except to deceive the masses and allow them the moral freedom of animals."
According to Garrett, "From this set of confusions it follows that one can no longer distinguish between man and woman, eroding the traditional family structure. Judaism is against the interpretation of equality as requiring the elimination of gender roles, which are complementary rather than inherently discriminatory."
Despite the critical voices surrounding the UN 2030 Agenda, several times it is the institution itself led by the Portuguese António Guterres that is at stake, as it engages in an irrational obsession with Israel, singling it out for condemnation while often ignoring worse human rights violators. Over the UN Human Rights Council maintaining a permanent agenda item exclusively for human rights violations in Israel. UN bodies and specialized agencies such as the Commission on the Status of Women are always used to pass politicized resolutions against the Jewish state.
