The Governing Board of the World Jewish Congress convened
in Paris on 12 November 2006. The meeting was attended
by more than 170 delegates and observers from the world's
Jewish communities and organizations affiliated to the
WJC.
The Governing Board meeting followed on from the innauguration of the new Synagogue and Jewish Community Centre in Munich, Germany, which was attended by the President of Germany, and at which a large WJC delegation also participated.
At the meeting Edgar M. Bronfman described Iran's nuclear program as "the worst danger we have faced since the Holocaust. [Iran's] intentions are clear: It wants to destroy Israel and dominate the Middle East. Neutrality is no longer an option for the civilized world." Roger Cukierman, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), said: "We have experience. When someone says: 'I want to kill a Jew,' you have to believe him." Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has "exactly the same language as Hitler, and the only difference is that he could soon have the atomic bomb", Cukierman said.
European Jewish Congress president Pierre Besnainou called on French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to take "firm and urgent steps" against the Iranian nuclear program while "there was still time".
At a dinner with the French PM, he said: “The Jewish nation, which has lived two of its most marking events during the twentieth century, the Shoah and the creation of the state of Israel, is facing today a man, Ahmadinejad, who denies the Holocaust and calls to erase Israel from the map. His intentions are clear: Hitler wanted a world purged of its Jews, Ahmadinejad aims at a world purged of the Jewish state." The EJC president added that "Diplomacy has its limits, and the free world has not only the duty of trying, it must also obtain results. World peace depends on this."
Responding to Besnainou, de Villepin pleaded for a quick vote of a UN Security Council resolution imposing "progressive, targeted and reversible sanctions against Iran".
At a luncheon speech earlier, the European Commissioner for External Relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, sharply condemned Iran. Her speech focused on the European Union’s role in the Middle East. She said that Iran left the international community “with no alternative” to sanctions regarding for failing to give up its nuclear program. "The repeated statements from” Iran’s president and others questioning the Holocaust and Israel’s right to exist are totally unacceptable," she said.
About 70 delegates and close to 100 observers from around the world attended the meeting at a Paris hotel. It was the first time the WJC held a large meeting in the French capital since 1948.
Among several speakers warning of a growth in anti-Semitism, Dina Porat of the Tel Aviv Centre for Anti-Semitism and Racism Studies said that since "the start of the summer of 2006 there has been a change of atmosphere. Anti-Semitism has entered moderate opinion." Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe, also warned that the groundswell of support for extremist right-wing views was bringing racism and anti-Semitism into mainstream European politics. "Other political parties have had to adjust, not to be outflanked," he when addressing the Governing Board delegates.
At a session devoted to inter-religious dialogue, Dalil Boubakeur, president of the French Muslim Council, French Chief Rabbi Joseph Sitruk and Mgr. André Vingt-Trois, the archbishop of Paris, discussed ways of working together for peace.
Following the Governing Board meeting a WJC delegation held a meeting with French President Jacques Chirac. |
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