The European branch of the World Jewish Congress, which held a two-day meeting here last week, expressed its deep consternation at the resolution of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly on the Middle East situation which called for the replacement or amendment of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 and expressed doubts about the Camp David accords as the basis for a comprehensive Mideast settlement.
The Assembly resolution, which was approved last month by 170 votes with no opposition and only 10 abstentions, viewed the Camp David accords as seriously jeopardizing the current peace negotiations.
The WJC meeting also expressed its strong objection to the Assembly’s equating the right of Israel to exist with the demand for the recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization as a negotiating partner in the peace talks. The meeting noted that the PLO once again displayed its barbarism and its declared aim to destroy Israel by wantonly murdering six yeshiva students and wounding 16 others in on attack on Jews in Hebron on May 2.
Representatives from 20 Jewish communities took part in the two-day WJC meeting, including delegates from Rumania, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria. The meeting marked the return of the Council of Jewish Communities of Morocco to active membership in the WJC.
At the meeting, the WJC European Branch’s European Economic Community Committee, together with the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) decided on practical measures following its recent London meeting with regard to representations to the EEC concerning the Mideast peace negotiations.
MOVE AGAINST ANTI-SEMITISM
Against the background of the increase of anti-Semitic incidents, the meeting decided to undertake a study aimed at harmonizing the laws of the various European countries to ban incitement to hatred on grounds of race or religion. It also decided on a number of measures directed towards improving pedagogical methods in the field of youth education against anti-Semitism.
In this connection, the European Branch was invited to take part in a conference on intolerance organized by the European Youth Center of the Council of Europe to be held at the end of 1980, following a proposal submitted by the European Youth Advisory Council of the WJC.
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