Brussels, 8 November 2018
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre - Europe partnered with 18 other organizations, led by the European Jewish Association, to discuss the status of Jerusalem and of antisemitism, over two days at the European Parliament.
Attended by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), politicians, multifaith clergy, media and academics, the sessions focussed on setting “red lines” for candidates and parties in the run-up to the 2019 European Parliamentary elections.
Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, spoke of “I.D. Theft of the Jewish Narrative as a Form of Antisemitism” with a power-point on antisemitica on the shelves of book fairs in six Arab countries and at the Frankfurt book fair...
"...We recalled that during a previous presentation at the European Parliament, a British MP present - close to then Prime Minister David Cameron - forwarded to Cameron examples of the Wiesenthal Centre’s findings of Islamist texts translated into English, French, Spanish and German. These were aimed at high schools in Europe with a high density of Arab-origin students. A few weeks later, Cameron responded, he had them banned,” stated Samuels.
The Centre also informed the Parliament of its 80th anniversary programme on the 1938 Evian conference on Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. There and then, 31 delegates explained why their countries would not accept Jews. The only member-state of the League of Nations, among the 32 present, which offered to take up to 100,000 was the Dominican Republic.
In Evian, the world’s answer to U.S. President Roosevelt’s call for a solution was a green light to Hitler, to exterminate 6 million Jews in the Holocaust...
“Remembering and studying these events allows us to draw lessons for contemporary refugee challenges,” concluded Samuels.