News in Christian-Jewish Relations:  September 2001

ISNA Condemns Terrorist Attacks

(Plainfield, IN - 9/11/2001) - The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) joins Muslim Americans and all Americans in expressing its deep sorrow over the apparently deliberate air-crashes in New York and Washington, DC that have led to the loss of countless innocent lives.

ISNA joins Muslim organizations throughout North America in condemning theses apparent terrorist attacks and calls upon Muslim Americans to come forward with their skills and resources to help alleviate the sufferings of the affected people and their families.

ISNA condemns these apparently senseless acts of terrorism against innocent civilians, which will only be counterproductive to any agenda the perpetrators may have had in mind. No political cause could ever be assisted by such immoral acts.

We join with all Americans in calling for the swift apprehension and punishment of the perpetrators, and call upon our justice system to maintain strict standards of justice and fairness in these trying times.

We also urge the media to exercise restraint, and to act responsibly when reporting on these terrorist attacks. Until the perpetrators are brought to justice, all media reports should be accurate, restrained and sensitive. Let us pray to God that He may Guide us all to keep firm in following our principles and offer relief to the victims of violence wherever they may be.

Signatories:

American Muslim Alliance
American Muslim Council
Association of Muslim Scientists and Engineers
Association of Muslim Social Scientists
Council on American-Islamic Relations
Islamic Medical Association of North America
Islamic Circle of North America
Islamic Society of North America
Ministry of Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Muslim American Society
Muslim Public Affairs Council

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Papal weekly audience remarks on the terrorist attacks on the United States 

Sept. 12, 2001

Statement of the Jewish Caucus on the NGO Process and Concluding Document

Durban, South Africa September 1, 2001 World Conference Against Racism

[Webmaster's Note: reports issuing from the World Conference Against Racism include disturbing reports about blatantly antisemitic demonstrations and printed materials.  Some of this antisemitic rhetoric draws upon traditional Christian polemic that most churches have forcefully condemned. The following statement from the Jewish Caucus concerning Non-Governmental Organizations [NGOs] describes some of this activity.]

Jewish non-governmental organizations came to a World Conference Against Racism after decades of commitment and involvement in the human rights movement and the fight against racism in communities all over the world. We have carried our efforts to the hospitals, to the schools, to the poor, to the needy of every race, creed and colour. In our work, we have also been ever mindful of those in need as survivors of the Holocaust and their children, who bear the awful memories of hell on earth. But we have been sustained and nourished in our charitable acts and activism by the reality of a Jewish homeland in Israel that is watchful of the rise of neo-Nazism and antisemitism in all its forms, that is a sanctuary both physically and spiritually for the Jewish people.

We came to Durban as part of a community struggling to resist the consequences of racism. We leave as victims of an assault on the very principles for which they have stood all their lives. This Conference Against Racism became a Conference For Racism. It took the vision of universal human rights standards applicable to all races, nationalities, and religions in the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and excluded the Jew. It took the vision of the equality of all nations large and small in the words of the United Nations Charter and barred the state of Israel.

Therefore, with profound sadness, the Jewish caucus rejects the text of the NGO Final Document in its present form. We must object both because of process and content. 

Process 

From the beginning of this process, there has been a constant attempt to silence our voices and appropriate our victimization. In the Asian regional preparatory conference, it was made impossible for a UN accredited Jewish nongovernmental organization to participate.

* On Wednesday, August 29th, the commission on antisemitism was invaded and shouted down by those hostile to our concerns. We were able to continue only by breaking up into six working groups.

The agitators continued their harassment by filing a complaint with the organizing committee that our commission was invalid because we did not continue in the plenary which they made impossible to conduct. Further they complained that our consensus was illegitimate because it did not count the voices and the votes of those who would oppress us.

On Thursday, August 30th at a press conference we called, the very same thing happened. A group hostile to our concerns invaded the press conference and shouted it down too, so that we were not able to continue. The din created by agitators chanting Zionism is Racism prevented journalists from asking us questions.

Furthermore, there has been a steady stream of individual incidents of people from our caucus being threatened, verbally abused and harassed for no other reason than that they are Jewish and stood up for the rights of the Jewish people. The overall impression and effect was to make us feel unwelcome and unwanted.

The grounds of this conference have been an arena of antisemitism, a stadium of hatred. We have seen the continuous circulation of virulent antisemitic hate propaganda - Jews with hooked noses, blood dripping from fangs,
with pots of money surrounding the victims, distributed on the grounds of this NGO Forum in officially-sanctioned booths of participants. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, along with other traditional antisemitic literature, is on sale at this conference. Antisemitic material that violates international human rights standards as hate propaganda is freely distributed. 

The organizers of this conference have done nothing to prevent this dissemination. By this failure, they have shirked their responsibility. Indeed, some of the organizers have actively participated in it. Individual Jewish participants here were harassed and intimidated. At the rally yesterday, there was a poster saying "Hitler should have finished the job". At another rally during the conference, a person shouted "kill the Jews". Within the Conference grounds, clothing is freely distributed with the official NGO World Conference logo inciting hatred and violence towards the Jewish state. Marches and chants have gone on almost continuously throughout the Conference of an antisemitic nature, equating Zionism, the Jewish assertion of the right to self determination with racism. 

There have been consistent attempts not only to shut us up, but appropriate our voice. The word "antisemitism" which was coined in the 19th century by William Marr of Germany to describe his opposition to Jews and Judaism, and has consistently been used ever since as meaning hatred of Jews, is now - in this document - taken away from us and said to mean something altogether different. This redefinition of antisemitism is an attempt, like Holocaust denial and Holocaust minimization, to deny our victimization. 

Substance

The NGO declaration accuses Israel of the worst crimes known to humanity, a new form of apartheid (paragraph 80), colonialism (paragraph 80), war crimes (paragraph 80), racist crimes against humanity (paragraph 98), genocide (paragraph 80), and ethnic cleansing (paragraph 80), massive violations of human rights and humanitarian law (paragraph 99). Israel is called a racist state (Paragraph 82). The text calls for the reinstitution of the 1975 UN resolution equating Zionism with racism (paragraph 161), a resolution Secretary General Kofi Annan called "lamentable". He said: "Its negative resonance even today is difficult to overestimate." The declaration further asserts a Palestinian right of return to Israel and condemns the Israeli Law of Return as part of the Apartheid regime in Israel (Paragraph 161).

The Jewish caucus says that all of these components of the declaration, singly and together are designed to delegitimize and have the effect, if accepted, of delegitimizing the State of Israel as a Jewish state and to deny to the Jewish people alone amongst the peoples of the world their right to self determination, and, in consequence, the right to preserve their religious and cultural identity. These accusations, singly and together, form a new antisemitism, directed against Jews around the world, and are, themselves, a form of racism, incitement to hatred and violence.

The accusations made against Israel are accusations made against the state and not individuals. They are a form of collective accusation of guilt, rather than individual accusations of crime. The Jewish community is well familiar with collective accusations of guilt, having been told for centuries that the Jewish community, as a community, killed Jesus Christ. The accusations made against the Jewish state of colonialism, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, ethnic cleansing and acts of apartheid are of the same nature, blaming a whole community for the most heinous crimes.

Palestinians are at war with Israel. They have walked away from the negotiating table, and have chosen to pursue this war at this Conference. They are asking this Conference to deny the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. Their attempts are both direct and indirect. Wild, unsubstantiated accusations against the State of Israel for the worst crimes known to international law are indirect attempts to delegitimize and deny the right to exist of the Jewish state. 

It is, of course, legitimate to criticise specific Israeli practices and policies in the context of a global survey, country by country, of such practices and policies. However, when Israel, virtually alone, is the target of such criticism, the targeting becomes political rather than principled. Selective criticism directed to Israel when far worse offender countries are ignored is a form of discrimination against both Israel and the Jewish people. 

The Jewish community is a survivor community, the remnants of the attempted extinction of the whole Jewish people in the Holocaust. To accuse falsely the Jewish state of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, the very crimes inflicted on the Jewish community not that long ago, is to mock and ridicule their suffering. The charges themselves are hurtful, a trivialization of the victimization the Jewish community has suffered.

Criticism of a wrong policy or practice should be commensurate with the wrong inflicted. Insofar as any Israeli policy or practice is racist, that policy or practice should be criticised in terms that are specific to the wrong. The rhetoric used against Israel in the declaration is totally disproportionate to whatever acts may have been committed. Any wrongs that have been inflicted are wildly inflated to justify the starting position of the critics, that the State of Israel should not exist. 

The Jewish caucus does not take the position that criticism of policies and practices of Israel are beyond bounds. There are many legitimate criticisms that can be made and are being made every day within Israel of government policies and practices. However, just as not every criticism is illegitimate, not every criticism is legitimate. Some criticism is beyond the pale, criticism directed not at what Israel is doing wrong, but to the fact that Israel exists. The charges in the declaration of colonialism, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, acts of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, the characterization of Israel as a racist state, the assertion of a claimed Palestinian right of return and a call for a repeal of the Israeli Law of Return are all of this nature. They are an incitement to hatred and violence, the evidence that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. They are the continuation of the war against Israel by other means, in disrespect for the purpose of this conference, the foundations of the United Nations, human rights standards and vocabulary, and the true victims of the awful crimes of which Israel is falsely accused.

Now we are faced with a vote where majority rules. However, human rights can not be compromised by the tyranny of the majority. We reject any vote that votes away our human rights. We had hoped that people with whom we have had common cause in their struggle for rights would have sided with us when are rights are threatened and trampled as they have been here. We welcome and thank those who have. We express our profound disappointment and dismay to those who have not. 

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