Kofi Annan Condemns Anti-Semitism, But Continues Embracing Palestinian Arab Anti-Semites
News
June 25, 2004


NEW YORK- The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is troubled that United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has failed to condemn the Palestinian Authority’s constant promotion of anti-Semitism, despite his recent speech condemning anti-Semitism around the world.


Speaking at a U.N. “Seminar on Anti-Semitism,” in New York City on June 21, Annan condemned anti-Semitism around the world, and also said that “When we seek justice for the Palestinians as we must let us firmly disavow anyone who tries to use that cause to incite hatred against Jews, in Israel or elsewhere.”


Yet Annan failed to acknowledge that the Palestinian Authority, which he strongly supports, is one of the world’s most active promoters of anti-Semitism.


In fact, one of the PA’s web sites is displaying a blatantly anti-Semitic cartoon in which U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is shown performing in front of a hooked-nose Jew with bags of money. (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 8, 2004)


Palestinian Media Watch recently reported that on February 6, 2004, PA Television broadcast an interview with Ahmad Nasser, Secretary of the Palestinian Authority’s Legislative Council, in which he said “Israel, the State of Israel, is the Satan’s offspring, a Satanic offspring … and cannot exist among human beings…” Nasser and the interviewer also discussed how Israel’s recent release of Arab terrorist prisoners was part of the Jewish conspiracy described in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Protocols is a notorious 19th-century anti-Semitic forgery manufactured by the Czarist Russian authorities to “expose” a secret Jewish plot to conquer the world.


The official PA media constantly publishes vicious attacks on Jews and Judaism, and denies the Holocaust. Raanan Gissin, spokesman for the Prime Minister of Israel, has said: “If you do a content analysis of the Palestinian Authority’s media, it is worse than the Nazis’ propaganda.”


ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said: “Kofi Annan’s condemnation of anti-Semitism will ring hollow so long as he fails to condemn the Palestinian Authority, by name, for the constant and vicious anti-Semitism in the official PA newspapers, television, and radio.”




Our Mission
ZOA STATEMENT
The ZOA speaks out for Israel – in reports, newsletters, and other publications. In speeches in synagogues, churches, and community events, in high schools and colleges from coast to coast. In e-mail action alerts. In op-eds and letters to the editor. In radio and television appearances by ZOA leaders. Always on the front lines of pro-Israel activism, ZOA has made its mark.
  • Center for Law & Justice
    We work to educate the American public and Congress about legal issues in order to advance the interests of Israel and the Jewish people.
    We assist American victims of terrorism in vindicating their rights under the law, and seek to hold terrorists and sponsors of terrorism accountable for their actions.
    We fight anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campuses.
    We strive to enforce existing law and also to create new law in order to safeguard the rights of the Jewish people in the United States and Israel.