ZGram - 10/31/2004 - "US To Rate Countries On Their Treatment Of Jews"

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

October 31, 2004

Good Morning from the Zundelsite.

Remember yesterday's Zgram, where a Jewish woman, angry at her 
ex-husband, started spray-painting swastikas.  It was difficult to 
discern her rationale - but then, who needs a ratinale when you can 
show your anger by kicking a symbol so universally reviled?  It's 
called projection - you kick a dog when a target of your anger,  a 
husband in this case, is not available or willing to let himself be 
kicked. 

Now look what happens if you can spray-paint swastikas to enhance 
your very victimhood and benefit not just yourself but your beloved 
tribe, sanctioned by the government?  I predict that, given the new 
program signed into effect will be good for the spray paint can 
producers:

[START]

US To Rate Countries On
Their Treatment Of Jews
By Maxim Kniazkov
Agence France Presse
10-13-4

WASHINGTON -- US Jewish organizations have hailed final congressional 
approval of a bill that compels the State Department to create a 
special office to monitor anti-Semitic abuses around the world and 
compile annual reports rating countries on their treatment of Jews.

The bill, known as the Global Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, was 
introduced by Democratic Representative Tom Lantos, the only 
Holocaust survivor in the US Congress, in response to recent acts of 
anti-Semitism in Europe and the Middle East.

The measure quietly cleared both the Senate and the House of 
Representatives by agreement and voice vote late last week - over 
objections by the State Department.

The department has opposed the bill because it felt it would be seen 
as giving preferential treatment to Jews over other religious or 
ethnic groups in human rights reporting.

But last month, it received an angry letter from more than 100 
prominent Americans, including former Republican vice presidential 
nominee Jack Kemp and ex-UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, saying that 
US diplomats were "wrong."

"It is the anti-Semites who are singling out Jews, and that is why 
the fight against anti-Semitism deserves specific, focused 
attention," the letter said.

Under the legislation, the State Department will have to produce an 
annual report on anti-Semitism around the world and publish it as 
part of its annual review of human rights. Moreover, the bill creates 
a specific office within the department that would document 
anti-Semitic abuses and design strategies to combat them. It would be 
headed by a special envoy to spearhead the worldwide fight against 
anti-Semitism.

"Considering that anti-Semitism plagues all regions of the world, 
this special office will ensure that the United States resolutely 
denounces acts of anti-Semitism across the board, including 
state-sponsored anti-Semitism in Syria and elsewhere," said 
Republican Congressman Chris Smith, a co-sponsor of the legislation.

Rafael Medoff, director of the Pennsylvania-based David S. Wyman 
Institute for Holocaust Studies, praised members of Congress on 
Monday for their "vision, courage and determination in overcoming the 
State Department's obstacles and achieving this crucial step in the 
battle against anti-Semitism."

Joel Schindler, president of the National Council of Soviet Jewry, 
said Congress "has now provided new avenues" for combating 
anti-Semitism around the world.

Barbara Balser, national chairwoman of the Anti-Defamation League, 
and Abraham Foxman, its national director, said acts of anti-Semitism 
witnessed over the last two years have underscored the need for 
greater monitoring of such crimes.

"As more governments take on this responsibility, strong US reporting 
on anti-Semitism as a human rights and religious freedom issue is 
vitally important," Balser and Foxman said. The measure, which is 
largely expected to be signed by President George W. Bush, requires 
that the State Department document acts of physical violence against 
Jews, their property, cemeteries and places of worship abroad, as 
well as local governments, responses to them.

The report will also take note of instances of anti-Jewish propaganda 
and governments, readiness to promote unbiased school curricula 
emphasizing tolerance.

Among the attacks that prompted passage of the bill, the sponsors 
mentioned the burning of a Jewish synagogue in Toulon, France, last 
March, the desecration of about 50 Jewish gravestones in St. 
Petersburg, Russia, in February, and the recent claim by former 
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad that Jews "rule the world 
by proxy."

[END]