Iyad bin Amin Madani, Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) was speaking on May 12, 2014 in Ankara at "The International Meeting on the Question of Jerusalem" organized by the UN "Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People." This UN Committee was created in 1975 to implement the infamous Zionism-is-racism General Assembly resolution.
He said: "On this occasion we need to recall how it was only through an international, unified and firm stand that the Apartheid regime in South Africa was brought to an end. Accordingly, Israel's reversal of its illegal practices is contingent on its realizing that there is a price to pay for its transgressions, and that the world can no longer put up with its practices."
Albeit the UN secretariat routinely explains away criticisms of the UN as the fault of member states, Robert Serry UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process - speaking on behalf of Ban ki-Moon - said he was "pleased to send greetings to all participants" and "thanked" the Committee, the Government of Turkey and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation "for organizing" the event.
The day also clarified a central feature of UN-based antisemitism: the very existence of Israel from 1948 is the root cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict, not the1967 so-called occupation. These UN conferences also make no effort to mask antisemitism, and attacks on "Judaization" - the crime of a Jew on Arab-claimed land. The proceedings on the first day alone included, for example:
- Ahmet Davutoglu, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Turkey, who said that "the meeting was an important and historical one, which Turkey was pleased to host." He also said that "those living in Jerusalem had been suffering since 1948" while "Jerusalem under the dominance of Muslims was open to all faces and religions."
- Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Palestinian Minister of Waqf and Religious Affairs, said the meeting "came at a time when the Palestinian people everywhere, not only in Palestine, were remembering the sufferings and the Nakba, the pain felt since 1948" and that "Jerusalem had fallen to Israel in 1967 and lived in sadness and suffering ever since."
- Wasfi Kailani, Director, Hashemite Fund for the restoration of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, accused Israel of "judaization of the heritage of Jerusalem" and said "there is no example in different parts of the world of what Jerusalem is really suffering".
- Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, Qadi and Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, said Jerusalem was an issue which concerned the "Arab and Islamic world and the whole world" and that "Israel was trying to judaize the city in many ways."
- Abdul Hadi, Chairman, The Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, Jerusalem, said "it was important not to fall into the trap of the Jewish Zionist narrative shaking or distorting the history and the facts."
- Palestinian journalism student from Gaza said "that more than a war was going on in Palestine...an inhuman life...It was worse than a war."
