Jewish leaders urge U.N. chief to speak out against anti-Semitism

"There has been nothing but total silence on the unprecedented anti-Semitic attacks worldwide," Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said after Thursday's meeting. The report documents firebombings of Jewish institutions, stoning of worshippers, calls for Muslims to kill Jews, desecration of Jewish monuments, and stabbings and shootings of Jews around the globe from France, Britain, Belgium and Germany to the former Soviet Union, South Africa, Australia, Brazil, the United States and Canada.

"We don't believe there has ever been, except going back to 1938 to Kristallnacht, as many synagogues desecrated and attacked in such a short spate of time," Hier said, noting that 93 synagogues have been attacked in different countries since violence flared between the Israelis and Palestinians late last month. During the Nov. 9, 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom, or "Night of Broken Glass," Nazi followers destroyed synagogues and vandalized Jewish homes and businesses across the country. Hier stressed that anti-Semitism is a violation of the U.N. Charter and the organization has a responsibility to speak out against the attacks, many of which followed the Security Council's adoption of a resolution condemning Israel's "excessive use of force" against Palestinians during the recent unrest. "It's no secret that the United Nations has a problem historically in the eyes of many Jews and the state of Israel _ that it ... has a tendency to be concerned about issues that Muslim countries raise, but indifferent to issues that the Jewish community and that the state of Israel raises," Hier said. "For the United Nations to allow the record to read that it said nothing about this worldwide spate of anti-Semitic attacks leaves them further open to that kind of criticism," he said. Hier said the secretary-general commented at the end of the meeting, "leave it to me." U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard confirmed that Hier met with Annan and gave him the report, but had no other details on the meeting.

Since Annan became secretary-general in early 1997, he has worked publicly and privately to try to end the anti-Israeli bias at the United Nations, which only in 1991 repealed a resolution equating Zionism with racism. Even though Annan hasn't totally succeeded, his efforts have been appreciated in Jerusalem. Many observers attribute Israel's willingness to accept Annan's mediation in the current Mideast crisis to the role the secretary-general and his envoys played in certifying Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon earlier this year. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center's associate dean, said he told Annan that the same committee that investigates the violence _ which has killed more than 120 people, mainly Palestinians _ should also investigate the anti-Semitic hate crimes. The Israeli-Palestinian summit in Egypt earlier this month, which Annan and U.S. President Bill Clinton attended, agreed to a U.S.-led investigation.

(AP)