LEBANESE AUTHORITIES NIX WIESENTHAL CENTER AD CALLING FOR UN SPECIAL SESSION ON SUICIDE TERROR
 
Four Major Arab Dailies Refuse to Run Ad
 
The Lebanese government has apparently blocked the Beirut-based Daily Star from running the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s advertisement, which calls for the United Nations General Assembly to convene a special session on suicide terror.  The Editor-in-Chief of the Lebanese newspaper, Hanna Anbar, initially expressed his support for the ad but later indicated that the newspaper was barred by “security authorities” from running the full-page advertisement.  Three other Arab publications, Saudi Arabia’s Arab News, the London-based Al-Sharq al Awsat, and Dar Al-Hayat never responded to the Wiesenthal Center’s repeated attempts to place the ad.  The international campaign was launched last week with full-page ads in The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune and appeared yesterday in Haaretz and Jerusalem Post, to coincide with President Bush’s visit to Israel.
        
“We are deeply disappointed that these important newspapers would block our solidarity campaign to put suicide bombing on top of the international community’s agenda, particularly when the ad highlights the tragic murder of a prominent Muslim woman,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, Founder and Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.  “Such censorship certainly calls into question the Arab World’s claim that it is a strategic partner in the fight against terror.”

The ad, which leads with a photo of the late Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, and the headline “What More Will it Take for the World to Act” say, in part: ‘The General Assembly has held Special Sessions on Disarmament, Apartheid, Environment, Drug Abuse, Gender Equality and Children.  Unless we put suicide bombing on top of the international community’s agenda, the virulent cancer of terrorism could engulf us all.  The looming threat of WMDs in the hands of suicide bombers will dwarf the casualties already suffered in 30 countries.’

The ad goes on to urge religious leaders to acknowledge that, “Suicide terrorists believe they act in God’s name and enter paradise as holy martyrs.  Religious leaders must use every sermon and every publication to denounce this belief as nothing less than an abomination of faith and a perversion of all that is godly.”

The full-page advertisement, which is also running in Friday’s National Post in Canada and the New York Sun, has already generated thousands of responses to its on-line UN petition (www.wiesenthal.com) from over 85 countries, including Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.