April 6, 2016
Melbourne, Australia, Washington DC, USA,… The B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC) and B’nai B’rith International (BBI) have welcomed the news that the United Nations has reversed its decision to censor an exhibition about Israel. BBI and ADC originally condemned the U.N.’s decision to censor the exhibition that focused on Israeli-Arabs, Jerusalem and Zionism. The exhibition was sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Israel, and was displayed at the U.N.’s headquarters in New York. The U.N. originally described those panels as “inappropriate”.
ADC Chairman Dr Dvir Abramovich, and Dan Mariaschin, Executive Vice President of B’nai B’rith International, and B’nai B’rith International President Gary P. Saltzman issued the following statement:
“We are pleased that the U.N. realized that delegitimizing Zionism by censoring an exhibit on it is not the answer to handling diplomacy. There is nothing inappropriate in pointing out that Israel’s Arab population—a minority that makes up 20 percent of the entire Israeli population—enjoys equal rights as citizens in a vibrant democracy. The rights that Arab citizens of Israel enjoy far exceed those of Arabs in any neighbouring country in the Middle East. This is an indisputable fact. It is only a controversial notion for those for whom Israel can do no right. The real scandal is that the U.N. General Assembly continues to pass, on an annual basis, a resolution that states that Israel’s proclamation of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is, ‘null and void and must be rescinded forthwith.’ No amount of U.N. censorship can change the fact that Jerusalem is as key a capital of the nation-state of the Jewish people as Paris is to France or London is to the United Kingdom.”
For further information please contact Dr Dvir Abramovich on (03) 9272 5677
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