U.N. commemorates end of Holocaust

NEW YORK — The U.N. General Assembly commemorated the end of the Holocaust yesterday in an unprecedented session described by Jewish advocates and U.N. officials as a turning point in traditionally abrasive relations between Israel and the world body.

Senior ministers and diplomats from nearly three dozen nations reflected with sadness and anger on the circumstances that allowed the Nazis to exterminate 6 million European Jews, as well as large numbers of Gypsies, homosexuals and others.

“We feel this is a very, very significant step, especially in this hall, the General Assembly hall where Israel is being vilified time and time again, to have this very solemn, universal occasion presided over by the secretary general and attended by foreign ministers from all over the world,” said Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman.

“This was everything we expected, and more,” he said. “We could not have wished for more than that.”

U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who lost members of his own family in the Nazi camps, placed the Holocaust in a larger context of humanitarian intervention.

“We’re here to reflect on the magnitude of the occasion how totalitarian evil claimed millions of precious lives,” he said in an address to the assembly.

“But just as important, the member nations attending today are affirming their rejection of such evil, and making a statement of hope for a more civilized future, a hope that never again will the world look the other way in the face of such evil,” he said.

The daylong special session came nearly 30 years after the same body approved a 1975 resolution declaring that Zionism equals racism, which was overturned in 1991.

The same body has, in recent years, observed an international day of solidarity with the Palestinian people, and included special language in resolutions and conventions explicitly supporting the creation of a Palestinian state.

Israel remains the only U.N. member that is excluded from participating in a regional grouping with its neighbors for such purposes as nominating its nationals to head U.N. bodies.

“This is a turning point, a step in the right direction,” said U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric. “It shows the increasing engagement of Israel in the United Nations. Remember, this is the same body, the same hall, that declared Zionism equals racism.”

Even so, Israel’s role in requesting the commemoration was deliberately downplayed to make it easier for Arab and Islamic nations to accept the session — if not participate.

The session initially was requested by the United States, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the European Union, and quickly won the endorsement of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

When it was put to a vote by Mr. Annan, 150 nations out of 191 agreed to hold the special session, including many Arab and Islamic states. However, the only Arab nation speaking yesterday was Jordan, which has long had diplomatic relations with Israel.

Other majority Islamic states to participate were Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

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