September 13, 2002

WIESENTHAL CENTER URGES ITALY TO BAN INTERNATIONAL NEO-NAZI CONFERENCE

http://www.wiesenthal.com

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has informed the Italian authorities that an international conference is called for October 12, 2002 in Verona, Italy by the neo-Fascist movement Nuovo Ordine Europeo of Trieste.

In a letter to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the Center’s Associate Dean, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, and its Director for International Liaison, Dr. Shimon Samuels, noted that the organizers of this meeting, entitled "In Memory of the Millions of Civilian Victims of the Democracies and Their Lies", have invited such speakers as:

·Ahmed Rami, who fled from Morocco to Sweden after his assassination attempt on the late King Hassan. He has been convicted in Stockholm for incitement on his Radio Islam, and is currently again under investigation

·An Iranian radical Muslim fundamentalist

·The Swiss organizers of a Holocaust denial conference scheduled for last spring in Beirut but cancelled by Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri

·A revisionist who fled a Swiss court and now resides in Teheran

·An Australian apologist for Osama Bin-Laden who was released on bail pending conviction by a German court for Holocaust denial

·An American who insults the memory of 9/11 victims in claiming the attacks were organized by the United States and Israeli intelligence services

The Wiesenthal Center urged the Italian authorities "to move against any such suspects who enter the country and are fugitives from the law. They should be promptly deported to the democracies where they are sought for trial."

The September 11 letter recalled "this anniversary of the mass murder of innocents in New York and Washington, D.C. by terrorists motivated by religious fanaticism and hatred," and appealed to Prime Minister Berlusconi "to take all necessary measures to ban such a gathering that, if allowed to take place, would aid and abet antisemitism and terror."

For more information, contact the Center’s Communications Department, 310-553-9036.

_________

Fredrick Töben comments

In April 1997, I visited Rabbi Cooper at his centre, and found that initially he was an amicable fellow. We agreed that it is important to ask questions so that our understanding of the world is forever refined. That such a mental development presupposes a free flow of information, was accepted as a given precondition to our mental health.

The good Rabbi, however, asked me a specific question: "Do you question the gassings?" I replied that I certainly did because we must know what the murder weapon looked like and how it functioned.

At that he abruptly terminated our conversation and showed me out the door.

Wiesenthal Center Demands Recall of British Ambassador to Israel

By Michael Freund

20 October 2002, http://www.jpost.com/


The Simon Wiesenthal Center has sent a letter to British Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw demanding that he recall Britain's Ambassador to
Israel Sherard Cowper-Coles over controversial remarks he reportedly made
last week.

Ambassador Cowper-Coles was quoted by the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot as
saying that "Israel has reduced the West Bank and Gaza Strip into a vast
detention camp."

In the letter to Straw, Wiesenthal Center Director for International
Liaison Dr. Shimon Samuels said, "If substantiated, we urge the prompt
recall of Mr. Cowper-Coles for Holocaust revisionism, banalization of the
memory of its victims, and endorsement of the most extreme voices of
Palestinian anti-Semitism."

Samuels further noted that "The outrageously undiplomatic calumny of the
Ambassador to Israel demands your condemnation."

http://www.wiesenthal.com/social/press/pr_item.cfm?ItemID=6602

 
October 21, 2002

WIESENTHAL CENTER ON BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL: "RECALL NO LONGER
APPROPRIATE"

On 18 October 2002, the Simon Wiesenthal Center had urged British Foreign
Secretary, Jack Straw, to investigate a statement attributed to British
Ambassador to Israel, Sherard Cowper-Coles, to the effect that Israel had
reduced the West Bank and Gaza Strip "to a Concentration Camp."

The Center’s Director for International Liaison, Dr Shimon Samuels, had then
stated: "If substantiated, we urge the prompt recall of Mr. Cowper-Coles for
Holocaust revisionism, banalization of the memory of its victims and
endorsement of the most extreme voices of Palestinian antisemitism."

The Ambassador has now corrected an apparent mistranslation in the Hebrew and
Arabic Press. He confirmed that he had, in fact, said "detention camp,"
rather than "concentration camp."

In view of this comment, not bearing a direct relationship to Holocaust
revisionism, the Wiesenthal Center no longer views the Ambassador's recall as
appropriate. Nevertheless, Samuels concluded: "The Center emphatically
considers the Ambassador's statement as language unbecoming to his diplomatic
standing."

For further information, please contact Dr. Samuels at +33.6.09.77.01.58.

JTA | October 23, 2002
  

Center protests anti-Semitic book

The Simon Wiesenthal Center asked the United Nations to denounce an
anti-Semitic book written by Syria´s defense minister. The book, which
is in its eighth edition and has become a best-seller in the Arab world,
accuses Jews of murdering Christians and using their blood to bake
matzahs for Passover. "The United States and the Security Council should
not sit by idly while one of its member states flaunts the charter of
the United Nations and allows a senior minister to promote anti-Semitism
on a grand scale," Rabbi Marvin Hier, the center´s dean, wrote in a
letter to the United Nations. Syria currently holds a seat on the
15-member U.N. Security Council.