Argentine National Library Cancels Anti-Israel Program

By JTA October 26, 2012

The Argentine National Library has canceled its program “The Ethical Trial of the Israeli Occupation and Colonization of Palestine.”

The Oct. 30 program was being organized by the Argentine-Palestinian Solidarity Committee. Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was to be on the jury of the so-called trial. The library confirmed on Friday that the conference was canceled at the request of Simon Wiesenthal Center.

“We are outraged at the abuse of a public venue for an activity targeting a country friendly to Argentina and its trading partner with associate status in the South American Common Market,” said an earlier letter to the National Library director, Horacio Gonzalez, from the Wiesenthal Center wrote. “A prestigious publicly funded institution cannot be tainted as platform for hate propaganda.”

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