As in past years, ADL responded to a variety of anti-Israel actions at the UN, including efforts to upgrade Palestinian status at the world body; to criticize Israel's plan to expand the municipal borders of its capital city Jerusalem; and to politicize the newly established International Criminal Court (ICC) by calling Israeli settlements war crimes. At the same time, in 1998 ADL welcomed the long-overdue recognition by the UN General Assembly of anti-Semitism as a form of "racism and racial discrimination."