Please watch our January video report from Brussels

On Tuesday 24 January the victims of the Holocaust were commemorated at a special event in the European Parliament in Brussels. The event was co-organized by the European Coalition for Israel.

70 years after the Wannsee Conference

- ECI launches new campaign to combat anti-Semitism

Berlin, January 17th, 2012 – On January 20th, 1942, fifteen Nazi leaders came together in Wannsee, outside Berlin, to coordinate the so-called ”final solution”. This was the attempt to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe, an estimated 11 million people. Seventy years on, Christians from Germany, Europe and other parts of the world, will meet in Berlin to decide how together they can step up the fight against Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism in our time.

-’ This may be our last chance to work with Holocaust survivors’, says ECI Chairman Harald Eckert, who is the initiator of the conference.  ’Three years from now, when we commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, there will be very few survivors left among us. The next three years will therefore be of crucial importance when it comes to confronting those who try to deny the Holocaust with living witnesses of the Nazi genocide.’

ECI to Secretary General of the UN: Time for the UN to celebrate the Jewish state

New York, December 13th, 2011 – In a letter filed on Monday to the Secretary General of the United Nations, the European Coalition for Israel expressed its disappointment with the recent UN campaign to delegitimise the Jewish state through the ”Annual Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.” For one full day, November 29th, the flag of the Palestinian Authority (a non UN member state) was displayed, in full view, side by side with the UN flag, while the Israeli flag was nowhere to be seen. In seminars and workshops throughout the day, the creation of the Jewish state was described either as a ”mistake” or as ”an act of aggression.” In a letter to the Secretary General of the UN, ECI writes;

- This one-sided campaign is a clear violation of the spirit of the charter of the United Nations which is drafted in defence of the sovereignty of each of its member states. Furthermore, the establishment of the modern state of Israel happened in parallel with the creation of the UN. Both entities were born out of the ashes of the Holocaust, with a pledge to never again let down the Jewish people, but to help create a safe haven for a people who had been persecuted and stateless for over 1,850 years.