UN Chief Endorses Session on Suicide Terror

From a press release from The Wiesenthal Center:

BREAKING NEWS February 28, 2008
UN Chief Endorses Session on Suicide Terror Following SWC Meeting

Following a meeting earlier this week with Wiesenthal Center leaders, UN spokeswoman Michele Montas confirmed that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is supporting an initiative presented by the Wiesenthal Center to hold a special session of the General Assembly on Suicide Terror.

The UN head told the Wiesenthal Center delegation that he would personally present the initiative to General Assembly president Srgjan Kerim after he labeled suicide terror, "an unacceptable political weapon".

"The time has come to place suicide terror at the top of the international agenda," said Rabbi Marvin Hier Center Dean and Founder. "This scourge is only going to get worse, and the world must act before it is too late."

For the past four years, the Center has been urging the international community to take action against suicide terror and designate it a 'Crime Against Humanity'. After the murder of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the Center launched an online petition campaign for the Special Session which generated thousands of signatures from 85 countries including Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, and Pakistan.

The group expressed their concerns about the upcoming UN World Conference Against Racism taking place in Durban, South Africa in early 2009 and the fear that the Durban II process could become a repeat of the debacle of the 2001 Durban I Conference which degenerated into an anti-Semitic hatefest. The Secretary General was also presented artwork from schoolchildren in the embattled Israeli community of Sderot.

Also in the delegation were Associate Dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper, (pictured 2nd right), Executive Director Rabbi Meyer May, (far left) and UN Representative in New York, Mark Weitzman, (far right). [emphasis added]

Wait and see.

One reason to be optimistic that there may be a serious attempt to deal with the issue:

One of the major changes, he [Rabbi Abraham Cooper] said, has been the “big response from the Arab world and Muslims.” He said that shouldn’t be surprising because “today the largest number and percentage of victims of suicide terror are Muslims.”

The same kind of enlightened self-interest that helped turn Iraqis against Al Qaida, may help here as well.

Technorati Tag: Israel and UN.