13 June 2018

NZ Jews welcome Finlayson’s condemnation of pro-Hezbollah demo

NZ Jews welcome Shadow Attorney General Chris Finlayson’s statement condemning the pro-Hezbollah protest that took place last Friday in Auckland’s Aotea Square.

New Zealand’s Jewish community is still under threat from the Hezbollah movement, even though we are far from Lebanon, the NZ Jewish Council said today.

“On the Internet you can hear a speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in 2002 in which he says: ‘If all the Jews gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of chasing them down around the world.’ ”

This is no idle threat, the NZ Jewish Council says. Hezbollah was behind the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish Community Centre in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in which 85 people were killed and hundreds injured.

“It is shocking to us to see New Zealanders support an anti-Jewish terrorist organisation,” the Council said. “It should be a concern to all fair-minded New Zealanders that an organisation whose beliefs are antithetical to the liberal, tolerant values most Kiwis hold dear is being promoted in a NZ public square.”

The demonstrators came from the same group which last year posted material on YouTube containing Holocaust denial.

“The Human Rights Commission tells us, quite rightly, that ‘Racism starts small’,” the Jewish Council said. “We don’t want to see demonstrations supporting Hezbollah grow into something bigger.”

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