1/25/05
Annan Steers Holocaust Assembly Away From Current Disputes 

By BENNY AVNI Special to the Sun 


   UNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Annan worked hard to guarantee that yesterday’s special session of the United Nations General Assembly concentrated on Holocaust-related themes, avoiding any attempts to equate the horrors in Europe 60 years ago with current disputes in the Middle East. 
   His success was apparent as Palestinian Arabs were not mentioned once in scores of speeches, other than a protocol request for the Palestinian Arab observer to join the session.The only allusion to the Israeli-Arab dispute was in a speech by the Jordanian ambassador, Prince Zeid Al-Hussein, the only Arab speaker at the session. 
   Mr. Al-Hussein, who spoke in English even though Arabic is an official U.N. language, displayed great command of the details of the Holocaust and focused on the lessons of the Nuremberg trials. His speech was concluded with the observation that the lesson of the Holocaust would be betrayed “if we allow through our inaction, year after year, one people to dominate another, and deny the latter many of their basic rights.” 
   By and large, however, the first U.N. event to commemorate the Holocaust, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, was dedicated to the singularity of the Nazi crimes and to their victims, specifically the Jews. “The tragedy of the Jewish people was unique,” Mr. Annan said in a speech that almost seemed designed to address a feeling in Israel and America that the U.N. is biased against Israel and Jewish issues. 
   “This is a historic event in which Israel and the Jewish people were mentioned in almost every speech — but positively,” Israel’s foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, told The New York Sun, stressing that the General Assembly is by and large used to malign the Jewish state. He also said there was a collective decision by the assembly to avoid politics in the event. 
   Mr. Annan instructed his underlings to override U.N. protocol, so that Israel’s “Hatikva” could be played — the first national anthem to ever be heard at the U.N. He also allowed for another rare breach of protocol that frowns at religious prayers.After the national anthem, a Jewish prayer was carried in last night’s opening of a Holocaust memorial exhibition. 
   The Bush administration was represented by the undersecretary of defense, Paul Wolfowitz, who is the highest-ranking official with an extensive family of Holocaust victims.The choice also might have been a political signal byWashington,as Mr.Wolfowitz is identified with a political wing that members of Mr. Annan’s circles consider anti-U.N. 
   “We commend the United Nations for a remembrance of the Holocaust befitting its significance in human history,” Mr. Wolfowitz said in a conciliatory tone toward Mr. Annan, who has been under attack by Republicans, some of whom have called for his resignation. 
   “I am convinced [Mr. Annan] was not politically motivated” in helping to organize the event, Representative Tom Lantos, a Democrat of California, told the Sun. Mr. Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor in Congress, added he believed Mr. Wolfowitz was picked to represent President Bush because of his personal connection to the Holocaust, rather than for political reasons. 
   “It’s very straightforward,” he said, adding that along with Mr. Annan, he worked very hard to overcome opposition to yesterday’s event at the General Assembly. In the past, anniversaries of similar events were opposed both by Arab states and the Soviet Union, which wanted to stress Soviet victims of Hitler instead.