 CORDOBA: The Organisation for Security and Cooperation began winding down a two-day conference on anti-Semitism and intolerance in this southern Spanish city on Thursday by insisting terrorism must not be identified with a religion, ethnic group or culture.
| Not even when religion or ethnicity is grounds for slaughtering people? I guess that's logic, but I don't think it's very good logic. |
After noting that the political climate, particularly in the Middle East, could never justify anti-Semitic attacks, delegates denounced linkage of terrorism with "a religion, a culture, an ethnic group, a nationality."
| At the risk of repeating myself, when a religion — or a sect within that religion — or a culture or a nationality declares jihad against the rest of us, what the hell else are we going to link it to? Eye color? Shoe size? Odor? |
In a carefully-worded final declaration, the 55-member organisation linking states from North America to Central Asia insisted the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could not be an excuse for anti-Semitism, seen as on the rise since the second Intifada began in 2000. "International events and political questions never justify racism, xenophobia or discrimination, towards Muslims, Christians or the faithful of other religions," participants concluded. A discordant note emerged, however, when the US-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre which seeks to uphold Jewish rights and preserve the memory of the Holocaust, regretted that the OSCE was broadening its remit beyond anti-Semitism. |