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Source: Reuters -
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Pope Benedict's decision to send a Vatican delegation to a
United Nations conference on racism has opened a new rift in
relations with Jewish groups, which say it is being used as a
platform to attack Israel.
The Jewish groups criticised the Vatican just before diplomats
walked out of the conference when Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad accused Israel of establishing a cruel and repressive
racist regime over Palestinians.
"By participating, the Vatican has given its endorsement to what is
being prepared there (against Israel)," Rome's chief rabbi,
Riccardo Di Segni, told the Italian newspaper La Stampa.
The United States and some of its allies, including Italy - a
country which often sees eye-to-eye with the Vatican at
international conferences - are boycotting the meeting.
On Sunday the Pope, who makes his first trip to Israel as pontiff
next month, called the conference an important initiative and said
he hoped it could help put an end to every form of racism,
discrimination and intolerance.
Shimon Samuels, head of the European office of the Simon Wiesenthal
Centre, said the Vatican is giving a seal of approval in the hate
campaign against Israel.
"This is not a position on which one can hedge," Samuels said.
"You can't have it both ways. The Vatican is a powerful voice
and (a boycott) could have had a strong demonstrative
effect."
Chief Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi defended the
Vatican's presence and said a disputed conference text was now
acceptable because objectionable parts had been
deleted.
Vatican condemns Ahmadinejad
Israel recalled its ambassador to Switzerland in protest before
Ahmadinejad spoke on Monday, and, after the Iranian president
spoke, the Vatican condemned him.
"Naturally, speeches like that of the Iranian president do not go
in the right direction, because, even if he did not deny the
Holocaust or Israel's right to exist, his expressions were
extremist and unacceptable," Lombardi said.
In the past Ahmadinejad has said Israel should be wiped off the map
and has denied the Holocaust.
The American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants
expressed its deep disappointment that the Vatican did not join the
boycott.
"Because the conference highlights the participation of Iran's
notorious Holocaust-denier Ahmadinejad there was a particular
obligation for the Vatican to have stayed away," said the group's
vice president, Elan Steinberg.
Abraham Foxman, national director of the US-based Anti-Defamation
League, said the Vatican should have boycotted the talks after it
learned that Ahmadinejad would attend.
"There was no moral imperative for the Vatican to be present at
this hate-fest," Foxman said.
Di Segni, the Rome rabbi, said the Pope's decision was the latest
imprudent step in his relations with Jews, which were severely
strained earlier this year over the Pope's decision to lift the
excommunication of a bishop who denied the Holocaust.
The United States and Israel walked out of the last major UN race
conference in Durban, South Africa, in 2001 after Arab states tried
to label Zionism as racist.
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