Islamophobia must be recognized as a crime against humanity in the same fashion that Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism should be, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said yesterday.UN Watch slammed the comparison at the UN-sponsored conference, and notes the irony that Erdogan's statement itself is anti-semitic:
Speaking at the “Fifth Alliance of Civilizations Forum” in Vienna’s Hofburg Palace, the prime minister underlined the rising trend of fascism across the Europe. “We are facing a world in which racist attacks have gained momentum, terrorism has claimed more lives, and religions and sects treat each other with less understanding,” Erdoğan said.
“Just like Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it becomes unavoidable that Islamophobia must be regarded as a crime against humanity,” Erdoğan said.
"We remind secretary-general Ban Ki-moon that his predecessor Kofi Annan recognized that the UN’s 1975 Zionism-is-racism resolution was an expression of anti-Semitism, and he welcomed its repeal." [UN Watch said.]Erdogan is saying that Jewish national self-determination is a "crime against humanity," which is by any yardstick an anti-semitic statement.
UN Watch urged all members of the Alliance’s High Level Group, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, “to denounce remarks that fundamentally contradict the very purpose of a forum supposedly dedicated to mutual tolerance.”
“Erdogan’s misuse of this global podium to incite hatred, and his resort to Ahmandinejad-style pronouncements appealing to the lowest common denominator in the Muslim world, will only strengthen the belief that his government is hewing to a confrontational stance, and fundamentally unwilling to end its four-year-old feud with Israel.”
Will NATO or the UN condemn this vile expression of hate given at a UN-sponsored conference?
(h/t Gidon Shaviv)