The Simon Wiesenthal Center (wiesenthal.com) has been invited to jointly sponsor, with UNESCO, an international conference on the recent upsurge of anti-Semitism. The conference will be held in May at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. "It is not only the phenomena of terrorism that the world faces," writes Rabbi Marvin Hier, Dean of the Center, "but also the reappearance of the old scourge of anti-Semitism. Not since the end of the Second World War has there been such a campaign of vilification directed against Israel and her supporters worldwide." Recent examples include:
* Cartoons in mainstream European newspapers, such as one in Greece showing two Jews in Nazi uniforms stabbing two Arabs, with the caption, "We were not in Auschwitz and Dachau just to suffer, but to learn." Similar cartoons have appeared in Spain's daily El Periodico and Italy's La Stampa, and, of course, pervasively in the Arab world.
* At the U.N. Conference on Racism and Xenophobia in Durban, Jewish delegates were spat upon, shoved and asked to leave public sessions.
* In Egypt, the 41-part television series, "Horseman Without a Horse," was shown during the Moslem holy month of Ramadan, with a viewing audience in the tens of millions throughout the Arab world. The theme of the series was the existence of a conspiracy of Jews to control the world.
* Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlas released the eighth edition of his book entitled The Matzah of Zion, in which he accuses Jews of murdering a Catholic priest and then draining his blood to bake Passover matzah. 18,000 copies of the book were sold at this year's International Book Fair in Damascus, where Tlas announced the publication of English and French editions.
* In England, the Saint Jerome Publishing Company terminated its contract with Bar llan University, refusing to sell textbooks to the Israeli institution.
* Just a few miles from UNESCO headquarters in Paris, Flammarion Publishing Company has published a best-selling novel, Dream of Palestine, written by a 15-year old Egyptian. The book's hero is a teenage Palestinian suicide terrorist who fights - and ultimately murders - "bloodthirsty Jews who profane mosques and rape Arab women." Many bookstores in France are selling this book in the Holocaust and/or teenage books section.
* This month, Canadian Indian Chief David Ahenakew, a member of the prestigious Order of Canada, stunned the Canadian people by telling a newspaper that the Jews were "a disease," praising Hitler for having "fried six million of those guys" in order to "make damn sure that the Jews didn't take over Germany or Europe," and saying that Jews "are killing people in Arab countries."
* Cartoons in mainstream European newspapers, such as one in Greece showing two Jews in Nazi uniforms stabbing two Arabs, with the caption, "We were not in Auschwitz and Dachau just to suffer, but to learn." Similar cartoons have appeared in Spain's daily El Periodico and Italy's La Stampa, and, of course, pervasively in the Arab world.
* At the U.N. Conference on Racism and Xenophobia in Durban, Jewish delegates were spat upon, shoved and asked to leave public sessions.
* In Egypt, the 41-part television series, "Horseman Without a Horse," was shown during the Moslem holy month of Ramadan, with a viewing audience in the tens of millions throughout the Arab world. The theme of the series was the existence of a conspiracy of Jews to control the world.
* Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlas released the eighth edition of his book entitled The Matzah of Zion, in which he accuses Jews of murdering a Catholic priest and then draining his blood to bake Passover matzah. 18,000 copies of the book were sold at this year's International Book Fair in Damascus, where Tlas announced the publication of English and French editions.
* In England, the Saint Jerome Publishing Company terminated its contract with Bar llan University, refusing to sell textbooks to the Israeli institution.
* Just a few miles from UNESCO headquarters in Paris, Flammarion Publishing Company has published a best-selling novel, Dream of Palestine, written by a 15-year old Egyptian. The book's hero is a teenage Palestinian suicide terrorist who fights - and ultimately murders - "bloodthirsty Jews who profane mosques and rape Arab women." Many bookstores in France are selling this book in the Holocaust and/or teenage books section.
* This month, Canadian Indian Chief David Ahenakew, a member of the prestigious Order of Canada, stunned the Canadian people by telling a newspaper that the Jews were "a disease," praising Hitler for having "fried six million of those guys" in order to "make damn sure that the Jews didn't take over Germany or Europe," and saying that Jews "are killing people in Arab countries."