Letter To M. Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Prime Minister, Spain

July 25, 2006

CENTRE SIMON WIESENTHAL - SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTRE - CENTRO SIMON WIESENTHAL
64, avenue Marceau - 75008 Paris - Tel. +33 (0) 1 47 23 76 37 - Fax: +33
(0) 1 47 20 84 01
E-mail: csweurope@compuserve.com 
M. Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Prime Minister
Palacio de la Moncloa
Madrid, Spain
                                                                       
Mr. Prime Minister,

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre is an international Jewish human rights organization with a worldwide membership of 440,000. Established in 1977, with headquarters in Los Angeles, it draws the lessons of the Holocaust to the analysis of contemporary issues of prejudice and discrimination. The Centre is an NGO in consultative status to the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the Organization of American States and the Council of Europe.

Our Centre is shocked at your wearing a so-called "Palestinian scarf" at last week's Socialist Youth Movement assembly in Spain. This scarf is not a symbol of religious respect, as in the donning of a skullcap on entering a synagogue or a hijab or removing shoes at the door of a mosque.  The "Palestinian scarf" was created in the Intifada as a token of support for Hamas terrorism. This apparent sympathy for those most hostile to peace and most extreme in incitement to hate goes beyond the Middle East context.

We are, moreover, advised that, following the French closure of EUTELSAT's transmission of Al Manar Hezbollah television due to its calls for the murder of Christians and Jews, our Centre's efforts for a similar shutdown of such hate programming via HISPASAT to Latin America, were obstructed by your administration.

Mr. Prime Minister, our Centre urges you to publicly clarify these positions. Whether they are based on a naive misreading by your advisors or a conscious policy of appeasement, such acts - if accurate - can only encourage further action by the terrorist forces associated with the perpetrators of the 11 March 2005 atrocities in the railway stations of Madrid.  Undoubtedly, they would disqualify Spain from a role in the Middle East peace process.

Most Respectfully,

Dr. Shimon Samuels
Director for International Relations

cc:
Rabbi Marvin Hier, Dean and Founder, Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Los Angeles
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean, Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Los Angeles