The Fox News report touting the U.N. General Assembly meeting on January 22 as “the first-ever devoted to anti-Semitism” got my hopes up until I read the second paragraph.  There the meeting was termed “informal,” probably because assembly spokesman John Victor Nkolo so described it.

Unfortunately, the report didn’t say what “informal” means.  I dismissed instantly the possibility that attendees congregated under a tent in the U.N. parking lot, because New York in January is a bit chilly.  I also had doubts that Sparks Steak House up on E. 46^th Street was the chosen venue.  McFadden’s Saloon on 2^nd Avenue would have created the wrong impression.  How about the sushi place on 3^rd?  Um, no.

So, “informal” had to mean something else.  But what?

I found an explanation on the AP website.  Here is how AP reporter Edith M. Lederer put it:

The assembly met at the request of 37 mainly Western countries including the United States who urged the world body to address the "alarming outbreak of anti-Semitism worldwide." It was an informal meeting, attended by about half the 193 member states, so no resolution could be adopted.

Aha!  “Informal” means that no resolution was adopted because half the member-states didn’t show up.  Lederer did not say why so may of them skipped what seems to be a rather important meeting, about which they were given plenty of advance notice.  Maybe they were over at Sparks, or McFadden’s, or the sushi place, or shopping at Bloomingdale’s, or asleep in their offices, or...

Lederer, however, did explain why so many member-states chose to attend.  Well, she sort explained by starting the piece with a topic sentence that gave the game away.  Here it is:

The first U.N. General Assembly meeting on anti-Semitism on Thursday sparked calls for global action to combat the rising hatred of Jews and a surprising denunciation from the world's 57 Islamic nations of all words and acts that lead "to hatred, anti-Semitism, Islamaphobia."

To make sure we got the connection, Lederer focused on comments by Saudi Arabia's U.N. ambassador, Abdullah Al-Moualimi, who “emphasized the links between Islamaphobia and anti-Semitism.”

"Anti-Semitism and Islamaphobia and all crimes that are based on religious hate are inextricably linked, they're inseparable," Al-Moualimi said. He said Israel's actions, political crises, economic recession and policies that protect powerful nations are "very closely linked to the increase in hate crimes, extremism, and violence and anti-Semitism."

Meeting organizers evidently got so many Muslim countries to go along on the condition that anti-Semitism be linked with “Islamaphobia.”  And did you notice that Al-Moualimi pretty much implied that hatred of Jews is partly...Israel’s fault?  How is that for chutzpah?  Blaming the victim, Saudi-style.

To make sure I wasn’t jumping the gun, I checked other reporting on what the Saudi ambassador meant by “Israel’s actions.”  As reported here, it turns out he meant “Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory.”  As we all know, Muslims believe that the whole of Israel is Palestinian territory, so Al-Moualami was telling his audience, in effect, that hatred of Jews is due to the very existence of the State of Israel!

Did our U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power pick up on this?  I don’t know.  On the ABC News website I found this paraphrase of her comments, which suggest that she (or her boss, or his boss) decided to let the Saudi businessman off the hook:

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said the statement delivered by Saudi Arabia's U.N. Ambassador Abdallah Al-Moualimi on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation was "extremely significant," especially since the United Nations has often been a venue to try to de-legitimize Israel.

So, yes, the U.N. met to condemn anti-Semitism for the first time since the creation of Israel in 1948.  No, a formal resolution was not adopted because half the members were elsewhere.  Yes, blaming Israel was, once again, the order of the day.  Yes, Obama’s U.N. ambassador was out to lunch.

Memo to John Boehner and Mitch McConnell: Gentlemen, you really really really need to do something about cutting our U.N. budget.