It was one of those news stories that generate a "what's new?" reaction. Arab states at the United Nations had vehemently opposed efforts to introduce a General Assembly resolution condemning anti-Semitism. Considering the unwavering Arab campaign against Israel at the UN, not much of a surprise here. On second thought, however, this story reveals a level of unprecedented shamelessness and exposes the character of Arab attitudes that deserve the widest attention and criticism.

It has long been the claim of the Arab world that its opposition to the State of Israel had nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Arabs claimed injustice in the creation of the state and in the emergence of the refugee problem (never mind that the refugees could have had a state of their own when there was no problem), and they denied any Jew hatred.

Now anti-Semitism has re-emerged on the world scene with a vengeance. Hundreds of incidents on the streets of Europe are making Jewish life more uncomfortable than any time since World War II. A torrent of anti-Semitic cartoons and articles appear almost daily in the Arab media. The genie of anti-Semitism is out of the bottle.

The good news is that while the world was far too slow in acknowledging the problem, responsible leaders have awakened. President Jacques Chirac of France, after denying there was a problem for two years, announced months ago that anti-Semitism in his country was a problem, that attacks on Jews were attacks against France, that his government would act to counter this poison.

The European Union held a conference on anti-Semitism in Brussels. The 55 member nations of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe convened conferences in Vienna and Berlin with the understanding that 60 years after the Holocaust, Europe cannot be silent in the face of the new anti-Semitism. And the United Nations held a seminar on anti-Semitism, highlighted by an important address by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in which he called anti-Semitism an attack against the UN itself.

These institutions and leaders were saying that whatever the political differences with Israel, the world must remember the lesson of what happened in the 1930s when hatred for the Jew went unchallenged.

Into this mix came the sensible idea of passing a UN resolution condemning anti-Semitism. It was a natural follow-up to the events of the past four years and the many manifestations of international bodies standing up. It was even an opportunity for the Arab world to demonstrate, albeit in a pro forma way, that its conflict with Israel was not a conflict with the Jews. But, not surprisingly, the Arab world has again shown its true colors, even to those who wanted to believe that at its core the conflict was a political rather than a religious or racial struggle. Arab countries rejected any effort to introduce a resolution on anti-Semitism. They even shocked the Europeans, who want to believe that the issues are political and not the product of age-old hatreds.

Arab opposition to this resolution must be understood beyond the context of the usual anti-Israel positions. It reflects the fact that anti-Semitism has become mainstream in Arab societies. In countries where government control is uniformly the dominant element, those in power are either deliberately fostering anti-Semitic expressions or at least are tolerating them when they could easily bring them to a halt.

This is evident in the proliferation of anti-Semitic cartoons in major newspapers throughout the region. It is manifest in the millions of individuals in opinion polls in the Arab world who accuse Israel or Jews, not Osama bin Laden, of committing the terrorism of 9-11. It is reflected in the surge of articles and Internet statements denying the Holocaust. It appears in the appeal of dramatic television series based on the infamous forgery "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," in which Jews are portrayed as plotting to take over the world.

To accept a UN resolution condemning anti-Semitism would be to accept some level of responsibility and negativity for all those preachings and teachings of hatred.

For those in the international community who understand that anti-Semitism is not only a threat to Jews but to all civilized values, Arab opposition to a UN resolution on anti-Semitism should serve as a wake-up call. The time has come to expose and condemn the level of Jew hatred in the Arab world, and to pressure the Arab world to deal with the problem at home.

The time has come to assert that Arab claims that its hostility to Israel is not based on anti-Jewishness cannot be taken seriously as long as they encourage outrageous stereotypes and conspiracy theories about Jews.