THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS
Red Hot and
Very Cool
Caving In
Majority Voice
The upshot? The U.N. looks better
in the eyes of many. The secretary-
general improved his image. Israel,
the perpetual U.N. loser, was queen-
for-a-day.
But the nagging question is, where
does this leave "never again"?
Widening the lens, we notice that
in December the U.N. adopted 22
resolutions condemning the state of
Israel, and four country-specific res-
olutions criticizing the human-rights
records of the other 190 U.N. mem-
ber states.
Also in December, the public
entrance of the U.N. sported the
annual solidarity with the Palestinian
people exhibit, featuring a display
about Palestinian humiliation at hav-
ing to bare midriffs at Israeli check-
points. (No mention was made of
the purpose of the checkpoints or
the Israelis who have died from sui-
cide belts on Palestinians who cir-
cumvent them.)
On exactly the same day that the
secretary-general announced the
holding of the commemorative ses-
sion, Jan. 11, he also pushed forward
the U.N. plan to create a register of
the Palestinian victims of Israel's
non-violent security fence. (There
are no plans to create a register of
Israeli victims of Palestinian terror-
ism.) -
In March, the U.N. will begin its
annual session of the U.N. Human
Rights Commission, at which Israel
will be the only U.N. member state
not allowed to participate in full
because U.N. states continue to pre-
vent it from gaining equal member-
ship in a regional group.
The U.N. remains without a defi-
nition of terrorism, never having
transformed the names of Palestinian
terrorists from abstract entities into
the targets of specific U.N. condem-
nation or consequences of any kind.
And any day now, we can expect
the secretary-general to continue his
pattern of denouncing Israel's lawful
exercise of self-defense as "extrajudi-
cial killing" or as a morally repre-
hensible.contribution to "a cycle of
violence."
In other words, U.N. demoniza-
tion of Israel and the green light to
the killers of Israelis that such demo-
nization portends will not skip a
beat. This is the face of modern
anti-Semitism.
Jews everywhere are indebted to the
willingness and ability of Israelis to
live and breathe self-determination.
When contemporary political issues
are set aside, and an affirmation of
the centrality of the Jewish state's
well-being to the Jewish people's
well-being is not key to a commem-
oration of the Holocaust, "never
again" is an empty phrase.
Worse, situated in a place where a
U.N. General Assembly resolution
said Zionism was racism until 1991
and the 2001 U.N. Durban
Declaration delivers the same mes-
sage, it plays into the hands of those
who would separate Jews from Israel
for no other reason than to divide
and conquer.
The speaker of the Italian senate,
Marcello Pera, was the only non-
Israeli participant who was prepared
to stand against the wheeling and
dealing in the backrooms, telling the
General Assembly that the anti-
Semitism of "today ... feeds on ...
insidious distinctions ... made
between Israel and the Jewish state,
Israel and its governments, Zionism
and Semitism.
"Or ... when the struggle for life
led by ... Israelis is labelled 'state ter-
rorism."'
The less-cynical response to our
original question — about the
meaning of "never again"? Some
Holocaust survivors such as Nesse
Godin and Congressman Tom
Lantos were able to speak directly —
during the unofficial lunchtime
break organized by B'nai B'rith, in a
room far from the General Assembly.
Some people listened. Some people
heard.
The pictures of Auschwitz are still
in the front hall of the U.N. for a
little while longer. A blow was struck
against Holocaust deniers. And for
one day, the democratic state of
Israel was not the most reviled mem-
ber of the U.N. (less than half of
whose members can be called "free"
according to Freedom House).
When all was said and done, how-
ever, the U.N. got a lot more than it
gave. Improving the image of the
U.N. and its secretary-general could
prove more costly than Israelis have
bargained. [1]
Murano
Glass
Off the coast of Venice lies Murano, a
small group of islands that is home to the
world's greatest glass designers. See some
of the finest examples of art glass, red hot from
Murano's magical furnaces and VERY COOL!
LIGTION
GLASS F
Trough February 27
Purchase tickets onsite at the DIA Box Office or online at dia.org
Members receive FREE tickets. Join today! 313.833.7971
Also see Detroit Collects Murano Glass,
an exhibition from local collectors.
DIA
r
you 9a.0?
This exhibition was canted by Marino Barmier, designed by Lela and
Massimo Vigriati with David Law, aict okodated by Exhibittins International.
NY. The noticingi lour of this exabitton is sponsored by Willi.
VE UN!
In Detroit. additional support is provided by Me Michigan Council for Arts
and Cultural Affairs. and the City of Detroit.
Go Pond, Verari & C. A mine {detail!. 1055. Photography by Luca %weld
930190
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