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War crimes accusations will cause Jews to assimilate: Sharansky |
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Written by Avraham Zuroff
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Wednesday, 04 November 2009 |
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Jerusalem – “There’s no guarantee that your grandchildren will remain Jewish,” Natan Sharansky told members of the Jewish Agency’s Taskforce on Antisemitism.
The newly appointed Agency head and former Soviet refusenik stated that unless the Jewish community unites against war crime accusations levelled against Israel, many Jewish university students will be embarrassed to identity as Jews.
Sharansky told taskforce members recently in Jerusalem that Jewish communities must be prepared for the backlash of antisemitism in response to a UN-commissioned report that accuses Israel of war crimes during its military operations in Gaza.
The taskforce discussed Israel’s actions. Sharansky said that the Jewish community must be informed of the facts and take action by promoting Israel’s position.
Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor and a political analyst at Bar-Ilan University, said that accusing Israel of war crimes for defending itself against more than 12,000 rockets fired into Sderot by Hamas terrorists threatens democracies.
“This is a greater threat than Iran’s obtaining nuclear weapons,” he said.
While Steinberg is confident that the world is reacting to the Iranian threat, he isn’t sure whether the Jewish world is taking adequate action against the repercussions of Justice Richard Goldstone’s UN report.
Steinberg explained that the table was already turned against Israel when the investigative committee was set to determine whether Israel was guilty of “war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Steinberg called the Goldstone Report a “cut-and-paste job” by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Rather than independently investigating, the commission relied on evidence reported by NGOs, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which already implicated Israel for “war crimes.”
Nor does Goldstone’s Jewishness protect him from being labelled an antisemite.
“Just because someone is Jewish or Israeli or his relatives are victims of the Holocaust, does not absolve him of antisemitism,” Steinberg said.
Sharansky said that the Jewish people’s enemies are those who divide the Jewish community into those with pro-Israel convictions and those who accuse the Jewish state of violating human rights. He stated that the Jewish Agency must take an active role in promoting Israel’s image.
“The mission of the Jewish Agency is to reconnect the Jewish community,” Sharansky said.
Taskforce Chair Amos Hermon told the Jewish Tribune that the Israeli government decided to take a proactive role in changing public opinion in the aftermath of human rights groups condemning Israel at the Durban Conference in 2001.
“We now realize that we must consider world public opinion [for us] to be effective,” he remarked. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 12 November 2009 )
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