Oswiecim (AFP)---Thousands of people marched Tuesday between the former
Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps in southern Poland in memory
of six million Jews killed in the Holocaust during World War II - The annual March of the Living, held since 1988, was overshadowed this
year by comments made by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who
described Israel
as "totally racist" at a UN anti-racism conference in Geneva.
Ynet News, April 22 - PM Netanyahu sent a letter to the countries that boycotted the Durban Conference in Geneva - Israel Thanks Geneva Boycotters - Roni Sofer - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a letter of gratitude to the
states that boycotted the UN anti-racism conference in Geneva this
week. He also praised the countries whose representatives walked out
during Iranian President Ahmadinejad's speech.
The states that
boycotted the conference, in addition to Israel, are the U.S., Germany,
Italy, Holland, Poland, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. The states
whose representatives walked out during Ahmadinejad's speech are
Austria, Ireland, Estonia, Bulgaria, Belgium, Britain, Denmark,
Hungary, Greece, Luxemburg, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovenia,
Slovakia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Spain, Portugal, Finland, Czech
Republic, France, Cyprus, Romania, and Sweden.
Communicated by the Foreign Ministry Spokesperson - The inflammatory incitement and by the Iranian President constitute
clear proof that the conference’s agenda has been diverted from
racism-related deliberations to an unabashed tirade against Israel.
CRIF - Faced with such a serious situation, [France’s] Freemason organisations
call on the President of the Republic to act to obtain a refusal from
the other European Union countries to support this farce and abstain
from taking part in the Geneva Review Conference other than as simple
observers - At a time when we are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, France must vigorously denounce the
orientation taken by the so called Durban II Conference in Geneva and
bring its full weight to bear to stop UN bodies taking this
unacceptable direction. ...
B’nai B’rith Delegation to the Durban Review Conference in Geneva - This week, 50 B'nai B'rith International (BBI) leaders, representing 11
countries, along with other partners, comprised the largest Jewish NGO
delegation to the United Nations Durban Review Conference in Geneva.
Headed by Honorary President Richard D. Heideman, Chairman of the
Council on U.N. Affairs Ambassador Joseph E. Harari, and Executive Vice
President Dan Mariaschin, the delegation also included Aaron Etra, vice
chairman of the council; Director of U.N. and Intercommunal Affairs
David Michaels; and other B’nai B’rith leaders from the United States,
Israel, France, Panama, Germany, Uruguay, Mexico and Switzerland.
A SUMMARY OF DURBAN REVIEW CONFERENCE
- Ahmadinejad’s speech - During his 30-minute speech, Ahmadinejad said that the foundation of
the State of Israel rendered “an entire nation homeless under the
pretext of Jewish suffering” in order “to establish a totally racist
government in occupied Palestine.” The “Zionist entity” was created by
Europe and the US. “In fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in
Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist
regime in Palestine. It is all the more regrettable that a number of
Western governments and the United States have committed themselves to
defend those racist perpetrators of genocide.” Many people walked out, including those European diplomats whose
governments had ignored the warning signs and chosen to participate in
this conference. They were cheered by Jewish NGO members and students
who had come to ensure that this conference would not take the
anti-Semitic path of the 2001 Durban catastrophe. The European Union delegates who left during Ahmadinejad’s speech returned to the conference afterward.
-
Different kinds of reactions - Libya and Iran were the leading organizers of this conference and thus
responsible for drafting declarations that single out Israel among the
nations for condemnation. Once again, the obsessive focus on the Jewish state meant that the real
problems of racism and genocide were largely ignored at this U.N.
conference. Only outside the official U.N. antiracism conference, at
well-attended "counter conferences" organized by NGOs such as U.N.
Watch, did the real victims of racism and mass murder get the attention
they deserved.
-
Meeting some legendary figures - In a packed unofficial session on anti-Semitism the next day, Holocaust
survivor and memorializer Elie Wiesel demanded an apology from the
U.N. for even inviting Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has long been infamous for
his Holocaust denial and calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. On Wednesday, B’nai B’rith co-sponsored human rights programming and a
pro-Israel symposium and rally, attended by several hundred people,
featuring such figures as legendary ex-Prisoner of Zion Natan
Sharansky, jurist Alan Dershowitz, Canadian parliamentarian and former
justice minister Irwin Cotler and French public intellectual
Bernard-Henri Levy. Mariaschin chaired a panel on Israel’s record of
humanitarianism.
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) and its 32 partner institutions have launched the World
Digital Library, a website that offers a unique range of cultural
materials from libraries and archives of 'across the world - According to Xinhua (Copyrights): "Proposed in 2005 by the Director of
the Library of Congress in Washington, James H. Billington, the World
Digital Library (BNM) will offer manuscripts, maps, rare books, films,
sound recordings, illustrations and photographs.
EGYPT
Jerusalem Post, April 20 - Egypt wants death for terror cell leader - Egyptian state security prosecutors have requested the harshest
penalty, which includes the possibility of a death sentence, for a
Hizbullah member accused of leading a terrorist cell that plotted
attacks in the country, according to a report in Sunday's pan-Arab
daily Al-Hayat.
The main suspect, whose real name is Muhammad Yousef Mansour but is
known as Sami Shehab, is accused of joining "a clandestine and illegal
group that aimed to overthrow the regime, threaten public peace and
violate laws, using terrorism as the means to achieve these goals," the
London-based paper said.
Egyptian officials have accused Hizbullah of organizing a 49-member
cell that plotted attacks against Israeli and Egyptian targets. About
half of the members are believed to have been arrested so far.
New survey: marked increase in anti-Semitism worldwide - Synagogues, cemeteries and Holocaust memorials were desecrated in 2008
on a weekly, sometimes even daily basis in many European countries.
Tel Aviv (EJP) - April 22 - Anti-Semitism rose in major Western countries
throughout 2008, particularly in Germany, Switzerland and Canada, and
spiked dramatically in early 2009, according to a survey - The new survey findings regarding the state of anti-Semitism worldwide
were released this week jointly by the European Jewish Congress and the
Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and
Racism at Tel Aviv University, while the Durban II anti-racism
conference convened in Geneva and Jews around the world commemorated
Holocaust Memorial Day.
The survey also found that without any outside triggers, anti-Semitism
remained at high levels even before the onset of the economic crisis or
the Israel operation in Gaza.
“What’s more, despite efforts at Holocaust education around the world,
anti-Semitic perceptions prevailed and the exploitation of Holocaust
metaphors and symbols of the Nazi era rose steadily,” the European
Jewish Congress said. .
The survey also found that synagogues, cemeteries and Holocaust
memorials were desecrated in 2008 on a weekly, sometimes even daily
basis in many European countries.
After dozens of violent incidents, Jewish children increasingly fear
being attacked on their way to school or synagogue and need special
protection in most European capitals, the survey shows.
The survey's authors estimate that there were close to 1,000
manifestations of all types of anti-Semitism throughout the world in
January 2009. The start of the Israeli operation in Gaza on December
brought into 2009 a wave of anti-Semitic manifestations throughout the
world, the report said.
The economic crisis that began in the summer also triggered anti-Jewish
reactions, most notably in Eastern Europe and the Arab world.
“The survey results underscore the dangers of rising global
anti-Semitism and the cynical use of Jews and the Jewish State as
convenient scapegoats for the world’s ills,” commented Moshe Kantor,
president of the European Jewish Congress, an umbrella organization for
Jewish communities in Europe.
He added: “The Durban II conference is a snapshot of the world at
large. It is taking place against the backdrop of a global rise in
anti-Semitism fueled by the economic crisis. The hate expressed towards
Israel and the Jewish people is stoking the embers of long-simmering
anti-Semitic canards and Jewish blood libel.”
New York Times, April 20, 2009 - New Looks at the Fields of Death for Jews - Jerusalem - In the Ukrainian town of Berdichev, Jewish women were
forced to swim across a wide river until they drowned. In Telsiai,
Lithuania, children were thrown alive into pits filled with their
murdered parents. In Liozno, Belarus, Jews were herded into a locked
barn where many froze to death.
Holocaust deniers’ aside, the world is not ignorant of the systematic
Nazi slaughter of some six million Jews in World War II. People know of
Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen; many have heard of the tens of thousands
shot dead in the Ukrainian ravine of Babi Yar. But little has been
known about the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of smaller killing fields
across the former Soviet Union where some 1.5 million Jews met their
deaths.
That is now changing. Over the past few years, the Yad Vashem Holocaust
museum and research center in Israel has been investigating those
sites, comparing Soviet, German, local and Jewish accounts,
crosschecking numbers and methods. The work, gathered under the title
“The Untold Stories,” is far from over. But to honor Holocaust
Remembrance Day, which starts Monday evening, the research is being
made public on the institution’s Web site.
PAKISTAN’S EXTREMISTS
The Economist, April 8 - The slide downhill in the world’s most dangerous place - The prognoses for Pakistan’s future grow grimmer by the day. It is,
said President Asif Zardari this week, “fighting a battle for its own
survival”. In the latest violence 24 people were killed on April 5th in
a suicide-bomb attack, calculated to foment sectarian hostility, on a
Shia mosque in Chakwal in Punjab province. The day before, eight troops
were killed in a similar attack in the capital, Islamabad, and a
suicide-bomber drove a vehicle into a group of civilians in the tribal
area of North Waziristan, killing at least eight.
Responsibility for the attacks in Chakwal and Islamabad was claimed by
the Fedayeen al-Islam, a group led by Hakimullah Mehsud, a powerful
deputy to Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. The
spate of attacks came a week after Baitullah Mehsud orchestrated a
suicidal commando attack on a police training school in Lahore, in
which eight police were killed and over 90 wounded.
Terrorist attacks have killed more than 1,700 Pakistanis since July
2007. Malik Naveed, the inspector-general of police of the
insurgency-hit North West Frontier Province (NWFP), said this month
that Taliban groups had merged with al-Qaeda and were spreading rapidly
across the country.
President Barack Obama’s new regional strategy puts Pakistan at its
centre. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
and Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy to the region, visited
Pakistan this week. At a dinner for journalists the two men conceded
that America was not winning in Afghanistan but seemed at odds over
whether it was actually losing.
American prophecies for Pakistan are no more optimistic. A recent
report for the Atlantic Council, an American think-tank, gave warning
that “time is running out” for Pakistan. Separately, David Kilcullen,
an adviser to the Bush administration, has said Pakistan might face
“internal collapse” within six months. Mr Obama has dubbed the
Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier the world’s most dangerous place……..
The New York Times - April 24, 2009 - U.S. Questions Pakistan’s Will to Stop Taliban - Islamabad, Pakistan — As the Taliban tightened their hold over newly
won territory, Pakistani politicians and American officials on Thursday
sharply questioned the government’s willingness to deal with the
insurgents and the Pakistani military’s decision to remain on the
sidelines.
Some 400 to 500 insurgents consolidated control of their new prize, a
strategic district called Buner, just 70 miles from the capital,
Islamabad, setting up checkpoints and negotiating a truce similar to
the one that allowed the Taliban to impose Islamic law in the
neighboring Swat Valley…..
The limited response set off fresh scrutiny of Pakistan’s military, a
force with 500,000 soldiers and a similar number of reservists. The
army receives $1 billion in American military aid each year but has
repeatedly declined to confront the Taliban-led insurgency, even as it
has bled out of Pakistan’s self-governed tribal areas into Pakistan
proper in recent months.
The military remains fixated on training and deploying its soldiers to
fight the country’s archenemy, India. It remains ill equipped for
counterinsurgency, analysts say, and top officers are deeply reluctant
to be pressed into action against insurgents who enjoy family, ethnic
and religious ties with many Pakistanis.
In the limited engagements in which regular army troops have fought the
Taliban in the tribal areas and sections of the Swat Valley, they not
only failed to dislodge the Taliban, but also convinced many Pakistanis
that their own military was as much of a menace as the Islamic radicals
it sought to repel, residents and analysts say….
Where it has engaged the insurgents, the Pakistani Army, untrained in
counterinsurgency, has become reviled by the civilian population for
its heavy-handed tactics, which have cost many lives while failing to
stop the Taliban.
At the same time, the police and paramilitary forces have proved too
weak to stand up to the militants. In Buner, desperate residents had
resorted to forming their own militias, as much to keep out the
military as the Taliban. That effort, too, has now failed.
Still, a range of American officials continued to press the Pakistani
government for “serious, aggressive” military action, an American
official said. The Pakistanis have yet to present a persuasive response
to American officials, who are calling regularly for updates…..
The Taliban have already carried out limited attacks and have had a
presence, including training camps, in several of the districts
bordering Buner, in some cases for years. But on Thursday the militants
were seen in several places moving more openly and in larger numbers
than before.
…..Government officials also confirmed that militants have been seen in
Totali, far south in Buner and close to the boundary with the Swabi
district, which lies close to the main highways into the capital.
Armed militants have also been seen visiting mosques and patrolling in
Rustam, a town on the boundary between Buner and the adjoining district
of Mardan, said Riaz Khan, a lawyer living in Mardan, the second
largest town in North-West Frontier Province. “People are anxious and
in a state of fear,” he said.
The Taliban were making a concerted push into areas that overlook the
capital, lawmakers and government officials in North-West Frontier
Province said.
A powerful religious party leader, Fazlur Rehman, who is allied with
the government, warned that militants had reached into the Mansehra
district, close to the Tarbela Dam, a vital source of electricity to
the center of the country.
“If the Taliban continue to move at this pace they will soon be
knocking at the door of Islamabad,” he told Parliament on Wednesday,
adding that Margalla Hills, north of the capital, seem to be the only
hurdle to the Taliban advance.
The Pakistani Taliban, who number in the thousands across the tribal
areas and the Swat region, have declared their aim of establishing
Shariah rule throughout Pakistan. …
Carlotta Gall reported from Islamabad
April 23 - The Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Liberman, had warned before
yesterday. "Instead of focusing on Iran, he said during an interview
with the main newspaper in Moscow, we had better care about what
happens in Pakistan, a threat that is much more concrete! " - By Mati Ben Avraham - Believing that the threat involved a change of priorities at the
global level, the minister said that Israel's role in this context was
to promote closer US-Russian-Chinese to avert the danger.
And yesterday, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton expressed concern
over the developments in Pakistan: "The fall of the current regime for
the benefit of the Taliban, she said, would cause a deadly threat on
the world. "
Indeed, since the summer of 2007, Pakistan is facing a wave of suicide
attacks is unprecedented. Seven in 2006, the number of attacks rose to
56 in 2007 and 63 in 2008.
The country is poised to win the world leader in terms of victims: 967
for 2008. the early retirement of President Pervez Musharraf on 18
August 2008, has increased the decomposition of the state.
This has fostered the rise of "warlords" local on the one hand and, on
the other hand, the Pakistani Taliban. These masters have made large
parts of the country, immediately replacing civil law by Islamic law.
They are now less than 100 km from the capital, Islamabad. The current
president of the State of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardani, increased
concessions to reach a modus vivendi with the rebels. Without success.
For Western and Indian experts, the fear is that the Pakistani nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of the Taliban.
Unlike Iran, Pakistan is not to stammer out his credo atomic, it is a
nuclear power. His new masters may, at their discretion, change the
rules of the game.
According to various sources, a worst-case scenario would be the study
to avoid reaching that point. Such "moving", discreetly, this arsenal
of bombs, scattered throughout the country to western sites .-
CHINA
April 24 2009 - Shimon Peres, and the Chinese Foreign Minister, Yang Jiechi, on a
visit to Jerusalem, agreed yesterday to continue the cooperation in
various fields to strengthen bilateral relations - In his meeting with the Chinese Minister, Shimon Peres said "that he
wishes the two countries enhance cooperation in such sectors as
agriculture, technology, environmental protection and energy, and share
technology and experiences.
He also appreciated the important role that China plays in the world.
For his part, Mr. Yang said that "mutually beneficial cooperation
between China and Israel has grown rapidly in recent years. Currently,
the two parties work together to make more profits in several areas of
cooperation, "he added.
The head of Chinese diplomacy underlined that the two countries
maintained good coordination in dealing with regional and international
affairs, and that China "appreciates the understanding and support of
Israel with respect to matters relating to Taiwan and Tibet ".
As to the financial crisis and economic recession, the Israeli
president called for a solution, adding that Israel is ready to
strengthen cooperation with China in order to overcome the crisis.
Both sides also exchanged views on the peace process in the Middle
East. Mr. Yang is currently on a tour of five stages: Egypt, the
Palestinian territories, Israel, Syria and Russia .
