News Releases 2024
From Dr Shimon Samuels, Emeritus Director for International Relations, Simon Wiesenthal Centre
Paris, 24 May 2024
Mr. Prime Minister,
It is shocking to learn that Spain has unilaterally decided to recognize the “State of Palestine”.
It is shocking, because this political move is celebrated by Hamas, in their own words: “We consider this an important step towards affirming our right to our land.” Well, we all know what the terrorists want to be “their land” – the infamous “from the river to the sea.”
Paris, 22 May 2024
“When the International Criminal Court (ICC) was established by the Rome Statute in 1998, we believed that its role would reflect the work of the late Simon Wiesenthal, to prosecute war criminals,” stated now Emeritus Director for International Relations of the Wiesenthal Centre, D. Shimon Samuels.
Samuels argued, “Sadly, the ICC pre-trial ruling against Israel showed that yet another United Nations-related institution has been infected by political bias as an instrument for Palestinian denial of Jewish sovereignty.”
“The United States and Israel never joined the ICC, foreseeing themselves placed in the dock,” stated Samuels, adding, “This became a reality when ‘Palestine’ joined the Rome Statute in June 2014 and launched a series of communications to manipulate the Court into targeting Israel, despite the ‘non-State, non-sovereign and non-defined borders’ Palestinian status.”
Read more: The ICC Infected by Political Bias as Instrument...
Paris, 19 May 2024
On 6 May, the Honoured Guest of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF) annual dinner was the new young Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal.
PM Attal’s speech spanned from his Jewish grandmother’s hiding from the Nazi death trains from Drancy to Auschwitz, up to today’s danger of Islamist extremism.
At that dinner, Dr Shimon Samuels, Emeritus Director for International Relations of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, had expressed hope that the new Government would take harder measures against antisemitism.
Doha, 14 May 2024
An open letter to the Prime Minister of Qatar, H.E. Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, who inaugurated the Doha Book Fair, that is open from 9 to 18 May, with the slogan: “Knowledge is Light!” in the “Pavilion of Cultural Diversity.”
Dr Shimon Samuels, Emeritus Director for International Relations of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, pointed to the Qatari Prime Minister an example of darkness and hate on the stand H4-102, of Dar al Tanoua al Thaqafi... Syrian publisher of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”, translated into Arabic by Mohamed Amin Sabbah.
Photo of the book on the publisher’s shelves at the Doha Book Fair, and a close-up (photo csweurope).
Paris, 9 May 2024
The annual meeting (80th anniversary) of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF) focussed on commemorating Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Day), the rise of antisemitism in France, the 7 October attack against Israel by Hamas terrorists and the some 130 hostages still held in captivity.
The Honoured Guest was the new – and maybe the youngest ever, at 35 – Prime Minister of France, Gabriel Attal.
PM Gabriel Attal with Dr Shimon Samuels (photo csweurope).
Read more: Gabriel Attal, the new French Prime Minister, at...