UNITED KINGDOM Over 15,000 activists joined the Wiesenthal Center’s online campaign to London'sMayor, Ken Livingstone (pictured right), demanding that he apologize for his comments trivializing the Holocaust and demonizing Zionism and Israel. Livingstone recently accused the Israeli government of "ethnic cleansing" and calledIsraeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a "war criminal who should be in prison.” These followed his comments last month at a pressconference when he called a Jewish reporter a concentration camp guard.
After Livingstone refused repeated calls from Prime Minister Tony Blair, British officials, Holocaust survivors, and London's Jewish community to apologize, the Center launchedit's online protest. Please add your protest to Mayor Livingstone by clicking here.
Additionally, the Center is urging mayors of major cities to refuse to officially welcome Livingstone to their citiesuntil he stops his reckless and incendiary behavior.
UNITED STATES At a briefing for Jewish leaders at the Center's Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, the American Red Cross President Marsha J. Evans, (picturedcenter with Rabbis Hier and Cooper), reassured Jewish leaders thatthe ARC will continue to withhold its dues to the International Red Cross in Geneva until Israel's Magen David Adom and its Star of David symbol are given full and equal statuswith the Red Cross and Red Crescent. To date, the American Red Cross has withheld over $26 million in dues to the umbrellagroup.
Last fall, Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper met with International Committee of the Red Cross President Jakob Kellenberger in Geneva to discuss this issue and the continuingscourge of suicide bombings.
SWITZERLAND During the prestigious 2005 World Economic Forum in Davos, a special session was arranged by the Center's International Liaison Director, Dr.Shimon Samuels to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. Parliamentarians, religious leaders, academics, and members ofthe Gamal Mubarak, and UNESCO diplomat Dr. Graciella Samuels.
Last week, after a devastating firebombing of a synagogue in Lugano that destroyed the synagogue's library, Torah scrolls, and a nearby Jewish shop, Dr. Samuels warned SwissConfederation President Samuel Schmied, that such attacks must be seen in the context of Switzerland's policy of appeasement regarding Middle East terrorist groups bent upondestroying any hope for regional peace. Samuels also urged Schmied to denounce Islamist-inspired antisemitism, call for the immediate arrest of the Lugano attackers and to pursue the investigation and expulsion of all Jihadist terrorist elements from Switzerland.
UNITED STATES Against the backdrop of a murderous shooting spree by a Minnesota high school student whose anger was fueled by a neo-Nazi website which hadbeen tracked by Wiesenthal Center researchers, the Center is sharing its Digital Terrorism and Hate 2005 CD-ROM with Homeland Security, prosecutors, law enforcement and communityactivists, and in briefings in Europe, New York and Los Angeles. The interactive study reports a 25% increase in the pastyear in the number of problematic sites on the Internet promoting antisemitism, terrorism, racial violence, homophobia, and hate music.
Based on data compiled by the Center's Task Force Against Hate and Terrorism, Digital Terrorism and Hate 2005 exposes over 5,000 problematic websites from every continent and in manylanguages including Spanish, German, Russian, Japanese and Arabic. There is also a separate section on hate games and websitestargeting children.
SPAIN Rabbi Cooper and Dr.Samuels (pictured) were invited with other human rights experts to participate in the International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security in Madrid. Organized by the Clubde Madrid , a group of international leaders, the Summit drew experts, academics, and approximately two dozen heads of state from around the world who discussed ways tocurtail the threat of international terrorism. The gathering was held on the one-year anniversary of the March 11 train bombings, which killed 191 people. In Madrid, Centerofficials urged the Club de Madrid to endorse the Center's ongoing campaign to declare suicide bombings a crime against humanity.
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This e-mail was sponsored by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international organizationwith 400,000 members, promoting tolerance and combating antisemitism worldwide.
demonizing Zionism and Israel. Livingstone recently accused the Israeli government of "ethnic cleansing" and calledIsraeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a "war criminal who should be in prison.” These followed his comments last month at a pressconference when he called a Jewish reporter a concentration camp guard.