New York City – The Holocaust provides important lessons for the present, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, stressing the necessity to bolster the forces of harmony and dialogue.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
In an address to mark the International Day of Commemoration honoring victims of the Holocaust at the Park East Synagogue in New York, Mr. Ban said that during a recent visit to the Middle East, he saw first-hand the suffering of both Israelis and Gazans.
“I said to all I met, on both sides: This must stop,” he stated.
“I left the region more determined than ever to work toward a world where two States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace and security. War can never be an answer,” the Secretary-General added, stressing that “we need to strengthen the forces of peaceful coexistence and dialogue.”
Mr. Ban stressed the need for frankness and for the recognition of the limits of power and goodwill.
“We here know that we can never entirely rid the world of its tyrants and its intolerance. We cannot turn all extremists to the path of reason and light,” he said. “We can only stand against them and raise our voices in the name of our common humanity.”
Paying tribute to the synagogue’s Senior Rabbi Arthur Schneier and the late United States Congressman Tom Lantos, both of whom are Holocaust survivors, the Secretary-General called for the reaffirmation of “our faith in the dignity of humankind and our extraordinary resilience – our moral strength – even amid history’s darkest chapters.”
In 2005, the General Assembly designated 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, as the International Day.
Ban’s appearance, his first formal speech at a synagogue, came as Jewish groups in the US decried the planned participation of Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, a Nicaraguan diplomat who currently holds the one-year presidency of the UN General Assembly, in a UN Holocaust remembrance ceremony scheduled for Tuesday.
D’Escoto, who in November compared Israel to apartheid South Africa at a UN session devoted to the plight of the Palestinian people, attracted criticism from Jewish groups and Israeli diplomats after publicly hugging Ahmadinejad at the UN in September.
Shame on Park East Synaggue for allowing him to speak after he trashed Israel’s action of self-defense in Gaza.
Bs”d
SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! ON ANY JEWSIH INSTITUTION THAT LETS SUCH A SONEI YISRAEL INTO THEIR BUILDING-AND SHAME ON THOSE IN THE AUDIENCE WHO CAME TO HEAR THE HYPOCRITICAL WORDS OF THIS ROSHA!!!!