Comments (0)U.N. Marks Partition by Celebrating Palestinians
December 6, 2009Jerusalem
JTA Wire Service
The United Nations is marking the anniversary of its approval of the Palestine partition plan with ceremonies supporting the Palestinians.
The United Nations has marked the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People since 1977. This year’s commemoration, including anti-Israel speeches in the General Assembly and an exhibit about Palestinian refugees, took place Monday and continued Tuesday.
The debate in the General Assembly is expected to generate six resolutions critical of Israel, according to reports.
Israeli U.N. Ambassador Gabriela Shalev was scheduled to address the assembly on Tuesday. Israel previously has boycotted the Palestinian solidarity day meetings.
Palestinian U.N. observer Riyad Mansour is expected to ask the U.N. Security Council to define the 1967 borders as the new borders of a Palestinian state, Ynet reported. On Monday, Mansour accused Israel of failing to be committed to peace due to continued settlement activity and occupation of Palestinian territory.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to freeze all settlement activity, saying last week’s announced freeze by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not go far enough.
“It is vital that a sovereign state of Palestine is achieved,” he said. “This should be on the basis of the 1967 lines with agreed land swaps and a just and agreed solution to the refugee issue—a state that lives side by side in peace with Israel within secure and recognized borders.”
The partition plan in 1947 divided Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. The land designated for an Arab state, which Israel captured in a succession of wars with neighboring Arab countries, is what the Palestinians claim for their state.
Anti-Semitic Incidents in Australia Hit Record High
Anti-Semitic incidents in Australia have reached record levels, according to an annual report.
Australian Jewish organizations have received 962 reports of anti-Jewish violence, vandalism, harassment and intimidation between Oct. 1, 2008 and Sept. 30, 2009, according to Jeremy Jones, the international and community affairs director for the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.
Jones, addressing the annual conference of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry on Sunday, also noted a decrease in the number of physical assaults on Jews.
His 144-page report reveals that the latest technology was being employed to “spread ancient hatred” and that “rhetorical red lines” had been crossed, especially by the political left, which had engaged in comparisons of Jews and Israelis to Nazis.
Jones, who has been collating data on anti-Semitic incidents since 1989, said the latest 12-month period saw the “highest ever tally of reports of anti-Jewish violence, vandalism, harassment and intimidation, at a rate more than twice the annual average, mainly due to new peaks in abuse and harassment in public streets and via e-mail.”
Israel’s operation in Gaza last January sparked “unprecedented levels” of anti-Jewish e-mails and public abuse, he added.
But Jones noted a “marked decrease” in reports of physical violence against Jewish individuals and property, and said the extradition request by Hungary for alleged Nazi war criminal Charles Zentai and the Federal Court contempt hearing for Holocaust denier Fredrick Toben had been “passionate without being racially abusive.”
Jones, a former president of the Executive Council, said “It is important to emphasize that my research over 20 years indicates Australians are fundamentally tolerant and opposed to discrimination, vilification or harassment of Jews and other segments of the population, but that a relatively small number of fanatic and offensive individuals are increasingly active in trying to diminish the quality of life of Jewish Australians.”
Nuremberg Witness Dies in New Zealand
A survivor of Auschwitz who gave evidence at the Nuremberg Trials died in New Zealand.
Fred Silberstein died Monday in Auckland. He was 80.
Silberstein, who was 14 when he was taken to Auschwitz in 1943, spent much of his life educating New Zealanders about the horrors of the Holocaust and the subsequent dangers of racism.
New Zealand Jewish Council president Stephen Goodman described him as “a tzadik,” a righteous person.
“For 60 years he worked tirelessly bearing witness to the horrors of the Holocaust,” Goodman said. “He was a modest and humble man.”
Tattooed with the number 106795, Silberstein survived operations by Dr. Josef Mengele, “the Angel of Death,” and cheated near-certain death by telling camp guards he was 15 and able to do manual labor.
His evidence at the Nuremburg Trials in 1946 helped condemn Nazi leaders such as Herman Goering and Rudolph Hess. He moved to New Zealand in 1948.
There are no records of how many Holocaust survivors are still living in New Zealand, but Goodman said they would be few.
This story reprinted courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.