SWC Commends UN Secretary General for Withdrawing anti-Israel "Apartheid" Report
March 17, 2017
The Simon Wiesenthal Center commended today's decision by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to remove a newly released anti-Israel UN report. "The prompt and appropriate action by the Secretary-General hopefully signals a return by the UN to its original goal of promoting peace not lies," Rabbi Marvin Hier founder and dean of the leading Jewish NGO said today.
Earlier, the Center had welcomed the UN's statement that report “…does not reflect the stance of the Secretary General”.
Yesterday, the Simon Wiesenthal Center had hailed a call by the United States to withdraw the United Nations report, Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid. The report, which was just released, said it “establishes, on the basis of scholarly inquiry and overwhelming evidence, that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid.”
“The era of blatant systematic abuse of the UN by an array of anti-Israel forces to promote the big lies, like Israel/Apartheid must end,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish Human Rights NGO.
“The Simon Wiesenthal Center is grateful that top Trump Administration officials, led by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, are warning the UN to stop its serial abuse of Israel or suffer consequences of reduced support,” Cooper added.
“Any hopes for true peace in the Middle East hinge on the Arab world, led by the Palestinians, to finally put an end to their global campaign of demonizing and delegitimizing the Jewish State,” Rabbi Cooper concluded.
Mark Weitzman, the SWC's Chief Representative to the UN, did add that the Center welcomed the strong statement from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' office that this report “does not reflect the stance of the secretary general”. “This is a clear affirmation that the Secretary General is prepared to stand in opposition to the biased and intellectually dishonest atmosphere that exists in some circles of the UN in relationship to Israel,” Weitzman said.
For more information, please contact the Center's Public Relations Department, 310-553-9036. Join the Center on Facebook, www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter feed.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).
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