Wiesenthal Centre to European Parliament: “Screen Arte Film in the Parliament Chamber to Prove its Rejectionist Arguments are in Violation of Your Newly Adopted Definition of Antisemitism”

June 15, 2017

“Many scholars and experts on antisemitism – including the Arte-approved Muslim co-author/consultant on the film, Ahmad Mansour – have glowingly endorsed this long-awaited documentary, as has the Wiesenthal Centre.”

Paris, 15 June 2017

In a letter to European Parliament President, Antonio Tajani, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, noted “the extensive media controversy around the refusal of Arte television to broadcast 'Chosen and Excluded – Jew Hatred in Europe', the film on contemporary antisemitism it had itself commissioned at the cost of the German and French taxpayer. Many commentators have dubbed this position as a 'censorship' based on fear of acknowledging that Islamist violence against Jews, BDS (boycotts) of the Jewish State and anti-Zionism are part and parcel of the scourge of antisemitism."


The letter highlighted that “only this month, on 1 June, the European Parliament (EP) adopted a resolution originally drafted in 2005 by the European Union Monitoring Centre (EUMC) - a body that was later renamed the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA). More recently, the resolution became known as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)'Working Definition of Antisemitism' See the full text http://www.antisem.eu/projects/eumc-working-definition-of-antisemitism/ in link: 

Samuels argued that “the European Parliament is therefore now endowed with a measure to test the apparent tendentious argument of Arte. Indeed, many scholars and experts on antisemitism, including the Arte-approved Muslim co-author consultant on the film, Ahmad Mansour, have glowingly endorsed this long-awaited documentary, as has the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.”

The Centre recalled that, “in 1989, we were called upon to organize a screening of Claude Lanzman’s masterpiece, 'Shoah,' in the European Parliament. In 2008, your late predecessor, Bronislaw Geremek, chaired the showing of our Centre’s own 'Life and Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal' in the same Parliament Chamber. On the basis of these two precedents and, as an organization whose Moriah Films Division has produced fourteen films, receiving two Oscars, we turn to you – with the approval of Director Joachim Schroeder – to request the early screening in the European Parliament of 'Chosen and Excluded – Jew Hatred in Europe,' to thereby test and enhance the EP’s own Definition of Antisemitism.”

The Centre offered “to supply the integral version of the film and ensure the presence for eventual comment of the Director and his co-author.”

“Mr. President, we would be delighted to come to Brussels to discuss logistics and the screening date with you and your staff,” concluded Samuels.

For further information please contact Shimon Samuels (00) 33-608-994-816 or 0033609770158, 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).