 UN_List: for United Nations articles. Other Bump Lists at: Free Republic Bump List Register Don't forget:
|
Posted on 04/02/2002 3:51:55 PM PST by GeneD
OTTAWA - Canada must speak out forcefully against the "deafening silence" of state-sponsored hatred against Israel that has spawned a dramatic resurgence of anti-Semitism, says a Liberal MP and renowned human rights lawyer.
Irwin Cotler, a Montreal MP and founder of the International Commission for Combating Anti-Semitism, said hatred against Jews is not new but has recently taken on a different emphasis.
Anti-Semitism now uses the rhetoric of international law and human rights as a protective cover to discriminate against Jews through unfair and one-sided criticism of Israel, he said.
"We are witnessing a new anti-Jewishness, one that is a dramatic transformation, grounded in the classical anti-Semitism, but distinguishable from it," Mr. Cotler said. "It is a global phenomenon, and that is the singling out of Israel and the Jewish people for differential and discriminatory treatment in the international arena."
Traditional anti-Semitism denied Jews the right to live as equal members of society, but the new anti-Jewishness denies the right of the Jewish people to live as an equal member of the family of nations.
Mr. Cotler is particularly concerned by the systemic discrimination against Israel at the United Nations and other international bodies, where the Jewish state is singled out for different treatment.
He is also disturbed by the "deafening silence in the international community" when Iran calls for the annihilation of Israel or when terrorist groups, such as Hamas, call for the destruction of Israel and Muslim religious leaders urge their followers to kill Jews.
"The Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers, it began with words. These are the chilling facts of history and I think Canada needs to speak out against this state-sanctioned incitement to hatred that finds expression today in the Arab and Muslim world," Mr. Cotler said.
Unlike the United States, Canada has a mixed record at the United Nations on defending Israel, although Bill Graham, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, has promised to back Israel's charges that the UN Human Rights Commission has unfairly attacked the Jewish state.
Mr. Cotler stressed Israel must be held accountable for human rights abuses, but should not be singled out as the only nation where abuses occur. Thirty per cent of the UNHRC indictments are against Israel but the commission has never complained about China, which has the one of the world's worst human rights records, he said.
"For 52 years, no country was hauled before the contracting bodies to the Geneva Convention -- not Cambodia, not in the Balkans with its ethnic cleansing, not Rwanda with its genocide, not Sudan with its killing fields," he said.
"Israel became the first country to be the object of a country-specific indictment while all the other major human rights violators have enjoyed exculpatory immunity."
Brave lad.
Wait till colen powell gets through with him....
UN_List: for United Nations articles. Other Bump Lists at: Free Republic Bump List Register Don't forget:
|
The same old blood libels, washed up and spit-shined, and then presented by some fancy long-named UN commission on human rights or some such thing.
He's an old-school big city politician in an almost one-party state.
A comparable U.S. figure might be Sen. Lieberman. There's a wide spectrum of views in the ruling Liberal Party, from fairly 'right-wing' to left socialism.
For them, it's all about maintaining power, perks, and privileges.
Kudos to Mr. Kotler for speaking out.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.