Annan tells historic session: Act against new anti-Semitism

[IndianaGreen]

Tue., January 25, 2005 Shvat 15, 5765

Annan tells historic session: Act against new anti-Semitism

By Shlomo Shamir

NEW YORK - Sixty years after the liberation of Auschwitz, a national anthem - Hatikva - was played yesterday for the first time at the UN General Assembly, and a cantor chanted El Maleh Rahamim, ending an historic special session that commemorated the victims of the Holocaust.

At the same time, speaker after speaker wondered why the vow "never again" was not enough to prevent the genocide in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur.

Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Laureate, was the keynote speaker, a rare appearance by a non-statesman or diplomat to speak from the podium of the body that was created in the wake of the horrors of World War II.

"If the world had listened, we may have prevented Darfur, Cambodia, Bosnia and naturally Rwanda," Wiesel said. "We know that for the dead it is too late. For them, abandoned by God and betrayed by humanity, victory did come much too late. But it is not too late for today's children, ours and yours. It is for their sake alone that we bear witness."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/531438.html

[liberal N proud]

1. So, Who were they implicating as the new anti-Semitism violators

[IndianaGreen]

2. Did you read the story about the Russian Duma cracking down on Jews?

It was posted yesterday in LBN.

As to this story, here is another source:

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said the lessons of the Holocaust are crucial today because Jews and other minorities are again being subject to some of the same xenophobic sentiments that gave rise to Nazism.

"It is not too late to recommit ourselves to the purposes for which the United Nations was founded," Shalom said. "The brutal extermination of a people began not with guns or tanks, but with words systematically portraying the Jews and others as not legitimate, less than human."

<snip>

For many Jewish and Israeli officials, the mere fact that the UN had agreed to hold a special session on Auschwitz in the great hall in which Israel is so often vilified constituted a significant triumph.

"Maybe they're trying to correct the damage the United Nations did, not only to the Jews but to the world at large, to call Zionism racism," said Roman Kent, chairman of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, referring to the infamous 1975 UN resolution equating Zionism with racism.

That resolution was invalidated in 1991.

(registration required)

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull%26cid=1106537797423

[FlemingsGhost]

6. Shalom doesn't need to go outside of Israel to find similar hatred

When I was in Israel, I heard Israeli Jews speak of Arabs, Palestinians in particular, as if they were filthy animals. Harsh, demeaning words rolled off their tongues effortlessly.

Shalom needs to be reminded that whenever you point your finger, three are pointing right back at you ...

[IndianaGreen]

7. Racism is an equal opportunity employer

But the biggest lesson of the Holocaust is that evil succeeds when good people fail to act. As Wiesel said in his speech, why didn't the US bomb the railroad tracks to Auschwitz?

Why did the US restrict visas to Jews fleeing the Nazis?

Why did we do nothing in Rwanda?

The list can go on and on...

[FlemingsGhost]

8. Is Judiasm a race or a religion? (n/t)

Flem.

[IndianaGreen]

10. Judaism is a religion, but Jews have also been part of the Jewish nation

The Nazis certainly treated Jews as a race, for they shipped to concentration camps people of Jewish descend that had been Christian for generations.

[gottaB]

3. hope you don't mind if I follow this upstairs--a couple of links

Annan's statement: http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=1273

UN News story: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=13102&Cr=semit&Cr1=

Not all of those links are functional yet, but the webcast at the bottom of the page works.

Elie Wiesel's statement starts at about 32 minutes into the morning session.

[itzamirakul]

4. What I don't understand is how ANYONE of semetic origin can

possibly condone the torture that the U.S. is committing against Iraqi suspects.

Let me quickly edit to say that this does not refer to the speech made yesterday nor any of the participants in that speech but rather the fact that we keep saying, "Never again."

When we remember the Holocaust with its experimental medical labs and the cruel and inhuman treatment of the Jews...how can anyone whose family members or ethnic group members who suffered such horrors possibly support a torture advocate like Gonzales, for such a high-ranking position in our government? I really wish more high-ranking leaders and especially those who happen to also be Jewish would take a strong stand against confirming ANYONE with a background of torture advocacy. They, better than anyone would know its horrors.

I have never been able to reconcile this paradox, nor the paradox of the Israeli Mossaud who reportedly torture Palestinians.

I know that the shoe fits on both feet, but the Jews are the ones who PERSONALLY know the horrors of torture so how can any of them do it or turn a blind eye to it in their own back yard?

Capturing one's enemies is one thing, torturing them is another and I am so against the U.S. involvement in this heinous activity.

We are constantly saying "So it will NEVER happen again," which has to be the biggest lie to ever come out of the human mouth. It is not only one group, but ALL of us who turn a blind eye to what can be plainly seen. We ALLOW torture and genocide.

Flame me if you wish, I am not anti-semetic but disgusted and honestly curious.

[bryant69]

5. I think one difference

is that they generally aren't torturing simply for nationality, but because the suspect has committed some act of terrorism, or is presumed to have committed such (of course we know that's not always so).

Neither the Israelis nor we have an open policy of hating Arabs / Palestinians / Iraqis. We aren't trying to wipe them out (at least not officiall (I'd argue we really don't want to wipe them out, but I undersand there are those who would disagree with that)).

Plus at least in Israels case, you can sort of see why they might agree to it--palestinian terrorists do kill a lot of israelis, and the language of the more hardline palestinian groups echos the anti-Semitism of Hitler.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[cali]

9. I too wish that

more leaders were speaking out against Gonzalez. At least in the Senate it seems like opposition to him is hardening. Regarding Jews speaking up against genocide and torture, that's what Wiesel was doing, and so do many other Jewish leaders. You're never going to find all members of any one group or religion standing up for the right thing. And, btw I didn't see anything ant-semitic about your post,.

[itzamirakul]

11. It is extremely painful for me because

I went to junior and senior high school with young people who had escaped nazi-imposed ghettos and managed to get to the U.S. while still in their early teens. Until the day I die, I will never forget the haunted look on their faces and the wide eyes that must have constantly been seeing the horrors to which they had been exposed. And at that time, we had not yet even learned of the horrors of the concentration camps that these young people had not even been subjected to. If their lives in the ghettos had been so horrendous, how much MORE horrendous must those camps have been?

Leah Schnittlinger, I remember, I remember more than anyone else...the look on her face...the brilliant mind that had to cope with trying to forget...sometimes I wanted to just put my arms around her because she looked so sad all the time...She never told us about her life, but some of the teachers told us bits and pieces, enough to make you gag.

Later on, meeting refugees with numbers tatooed on their arms...realizing that they had survived the camps.

How can ANYONE find ANY excuse to do this to anyone else?
How do we forget this?
How do we condone anyone who advocates this kind of inhuman behavior?
How do we keep saying "Never again" and then keep doing it over and over and over?

To think that today, some of their children and grandchildren might be utilizing these same atrocities that they went through is beyond belief to me.

[Lithos]

12. The Never Again Association

http://free.ngo.pl/nw/english/index.html

Excellent site.

L-

[IndianaGreen]

13. Thanks for the link, Lithos n/t

:)

[David Zephyr]

14. Kick!

Thanks, IG. :thumbsup:

[IndianaGreen]

15. Kick back!

:)