World Jewish Congress demands Ecuador’s UN envoy publicly apologize for equating Zionism with Nazism

NEW YORK - The World Jewish Congress on Tuesday took Ecuador’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Horacio Sevilla Borja, to task for his remarks in the General Assembly accusing equating Zionism with Nazism.  In a letter to Borja following his comments last week on the occasion of International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, WJC CEO and Executive Vice President Robert Singer expressed his “extreme disappointment” and demanded that the ambassador publicly apologize and rescind his remarks.

Below is the text of Singer’s letter:

“As CEO and Executive Vice President of the World Jewish Congress, I am writing to express my extreme disappointment in your remarks last week at a United Nations General Assembly, in which, quoting Fidel Castro, you accused the State of Israel of “genocide” against the “heroic Palestinian people,” and compared the policies of the Israeli government to that of the Nazi regime. This inaccurate and provocative assertion is an extraordinary insult to the memory of the six million Jews exterminated at the hands of the Nazis, and to all 60 million people who died as a result of the war launched by Adolf Hitler.

“This inaccurate and provocative assertion is an extraordinary insult to the memory of the six million Jews exterminated at the hands of the Nazis, and to all 60 million people who died as a result of the war launched by Adolf Hitler.

“In the 70 years since the end of the Holocaust, the world has witnessed no few genocides; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot, under any definition, be included in this list. Any attempt to do so trivializes genocides, past and present. Israel does not seek the extermination of the Palestinian people. On the contrary, Israel respects the dignity of the Palestinian people, and is working to improve living conditions for the people of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, while contending with ongoing violence and incitement. Israel is a sovereign state that has the right to defend itself against terror and aggression.

As the international organization representing more than 100 Jewish communities around the world, the World Jewish Congress will not tolerate such inflammatory attacks as comparing the State of Israel to the barbaric Nazi regime. We urge you to publicly apologize and rescind your remarks, and to focus your efforts in the Israeli-Palestinian arena on helping the two sides to reach a two-state solution to end this conflict once and for all,” the letter concluded.