June 23, 2017
His Excellency Sacha Llorenty
Ambassador of Bolivia to the United Nations
President of the United Nations Security Council
Dear Ambassador Llorenty,
We are writing regarding an offensive Holocaust analogy made by Lakhdar Brahimi during a recent UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East.
During his speech to the Council, the former Algerian Foreign Minister and UN envoy sympathetically quoted a Palestinian woman from Gaza who told Brahimi that “Israel has put us in a concentration camp.” Much to our surprise, Brahimi’s remark went unchallenged by other Security Council members, including you.
A comparison of this nature, which seeks to link the Jewish state with those who perpetrated the greatest and largest act of anti-Semitism in world history, is not an impartial or dispassionate accusation. It is a charge that is purposefully directed at Jews in an effort to associate the victims of the Nazi crimes with the Nazi perpetrators, and serves to diminish the significance and uniqueness of the Holocaust. To make such a comparison is an act of blatant hostility toward Jews and Jewish history. And indeed, Mr. Brahimi has a record of employing similarly offensive stereotypes about Jews, including accusing the “Jewish-Zionist lobby” of controlling the US government.
Mr. Ambassador, we strongly urge you to condemn Mr. Brahimi’s offensive Holocaust analogy. Doing so would send an important message about the Security Council’s rejection of anti-Jewish bias within the United Nations.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Greenblatt
CEO