Simon Wiesenthal Center
July 20, 2006

SWC BREAKING NEWS:
AT UN HEADQUARTERS, WIESENTHAL CENTER REJECTS UN "DISPROPORTIONATE USE OF FORCE” CRITICISM OF ISRAEL

A delegation from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, including a survivor of a suicide bombing, met with senior UN officials at the offices of the Secretariat in New York to discuss international terrorism and events in the Middle East.

During the meeting with Assistant Secretary General Robert Orr, Rabbi Marvin Hier, Wiesenthal Center founder and dean, rejected Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s assertion today that Israel was guilty of using “disproportionate use of force and collective punishment of the Lebanese people” in its struggle to defeat Hezbollah. “While we acknowledge that the Secretary General explicitly blamed Hezbollah for starting this crisis, we reject the implied moral equivalency. Further, Mr. Annan’s failure to assign any responsibility at the doorstep of the Lebanese government which for 6 years failed to disarm Hezbollah as it stockpiled thousands of rockets and  took total control of the border region with Israel in contravention of UN Resolution 1559, will imperil any future diplomatic solution,” Hier said. (click here to read Secretary-General Annan's July 20, 2006 remarks delivered to the UN Security Council).

Photo: L-R, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, SWC associate dean; Rabbi Hier; Tuly Wultz; Mark Weitzman, SWC Chief UN Liaison in New York; Edward Mortimer, UN Secretary General’s Director of Communications; Robert Orr, Assistant UN Secretary General; and unidentified UN aide. Not pictured: Sheryl and Amanda Wultz.

Secretary Orr reaffirmed the UN Secretary General’s efforts that all member states must accept “the unacceptability of terrorism in any form without qualification.”

Also at the meeting from South Florida, was the family of a 16-year old American, Daniel Wultz, who died seven weeks ago from injuries sustained in a suicide attack in Tel Aviv. In an emotional plea, Tuly Wultz, Daniel’s father who was also seriously wounded in the attack, pleaded with UN officials to teach children the world over to reject the “culture of death and embrace the value of human life as the ultimate human right."

"On the day my son died, the saddest day of our lives, the mother of his murderer went on Al Jazeera television and stated that she can’t wait for her two daughters to join their ‘martyred brother’ as suicide bombers,” Mr. Wultz said.