UN Members Urged to Back Resolution Against Holocaust Denial

Daily News Article   —   Posted on January 25, 2007

(by Aleena Shakeel, CNSNews.com) – The United States hopes that the United Nations General Assembly will vote by the end of this week on a resolution that condemns “any denial of the Holocaust,” but as of Wednesday, dozens of nations had yet to indicate whether they would support it.

The United States Tuesday introduced the resolution, which is being seen as a direct response to Iran’s hosting of a Holocaust denial conference last month. The conference in Tehran included speeches that questioned the Nazis’ attempt to exterminate European Jewry during World War II and some that sought to undermine Israel as a state.

“The recent Holocaust denial conference sponsored by the government of Iran should serve as a warning to the entire international community,” the World Jewish Congress said in a statement Wednesday.

“With a steadily advancing nuclear capability, a long record of sponsoring terrorism and a president openly calling for the destruction of a U.N. member state, the lessons of the past need to be heeded and not denied,” it added, urging 118 ambassadors of U.N. member states to add their support to that of 73 nations that have already agreed to support the resolution.

Ambassadors from countries that haven’t committed to voting for the measure were also called on by the Anti-Defamation League to do so.

“We urge you to support this important declaration by the international community reinforcing that it will never forget the Holocaust and rejecting those who seek to deny it,” the group said this week.

It said the declaration is critical to ensuring that the world does not ignore current and future acts of genocide.

Washington is hoping for a vote by Friday, ahead of the United Nations’ Jan. 27 International Day of Commemoration in memory of Holocaust victims. This year’s observance, the second since the day was instituted, will be held on Monday.

Jan. 27 is the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz in 1945.

Reprinted here with permission from Cybercast News Service. Visit the website at CNSNews.com.