May 17th, 2005

Wiesenthal Center urges Prime Minister Koizumi to link future Palestinian aid to “measurable milestones in dismantling terror and ending incitement

Following Prime Minister’s Junichiro Koizumi’s meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas which resulted in the promise of $100 million in aid, the Simon Wiesenthal Center urged the Japanese leader to link future aid “to measurable milestones in dismantling terror and ending incitement to violence and antisemitic hatred.”

The request by the leading Jewish human rights group comes in wake of a horrific sermon broadcast by the PalestinianTV in whichSheikh Ibrahim Mudairis,from his mosque in Gaza, charged that,”The Jews are the cancer spreading all over the world…The Jews are a virus like AIDS hitting humankind…True, the Germans killed and burnt Jews but the Jews exaggerate the numbers to gain propaganda advantages and sympathy…” The cleric went on to say that God will solve the “Jewish problem” by exterminating them. The current chief of Palestinian Broadcasting Authority was appointed by Mr. Abbas. The Wiesenthal Center has demanded that Abbas remove the new head of the PBC.

In their letter to Prime Minister Koizumi, Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper, dean and associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center (respectively) recognized Japan’s commitment to furthering peace in the Holy Land. But, they said, “This hate speech exceeds in its blatant antisemitism and Holocaust denial even the hateful sermons preached under Yasser Arafat’s reign. Furthermore, it coincided with the civilized world’s commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazism.

What message does this television broadcast convey to the people of Israel, other than the leave them to wonder whether this is the peace dividend they can look forward to from their new Palestinian partners? On behalf of the Wiesenthal Center’s 400,000 constituent families, we urge you to link all future assistance to the PA to measurable milestones in dismantling the infrastructure of terror in the territory it controls and to the Palestinian Authority ending all incitement to violence and antisemitic hatred.”

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, and the Council of Europe. For more information, please contact the Wiesenthal Center’s Public Relations department, 310-533-9036, or visit www.wiesenthal.com.

Marcial Lavina
Assistant Director, Public Relations
Simon Wiesenthal Center
Museum of Tolerance
P: 310-772-2455
F: 310-553-4521
mlavina@wiesenthal.net

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