(New York, NY — October 24, 2023) — StandWithUs, in partnership with two dozen organizations will co-host a press conference and solidarity gathering to demand the release of the hostages abducted by Hamas, and to demand that the United Nations Support Israel’s Right of Self-Defense. The event will be held outside the UN at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza on Tuesday October 24 at 1:30 pm. The plaza is located at 47th street between 1st and 2nd avenues.
It will be live streamed on this link, accessible from all SWU platforms: https://youtube.com/live/XKisox249vY?feature=share
The press conference will address the UN’s antisemitism and global assault on Israel and the Jewish people. It will also spotlight the antisemitism of the Commission of Inquiry, headed up by Navi Pillay, and will demand that Israel be treated as an equal among the family of nations. At the forefront of the UN’s assault on Israel have been Navi Pillay, head of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Israel, and Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Territories, who have led a global campaign to demonize Israel and deny Israel its right of self-defense. The press conference will occur before Pillay and Albanese are slated to present their reports’ findings to the General Assembly at 3:00 P.M. on the same day as the press conference/gathering. On October 07, 2023, Israel suffered its worst terrorist attack since the Holocaust. The terrorist organization Hamas tortured and massacred 1,400 innocent civilians, many of whom were decapitated, and took more than 200 civilians hostage. Instead of acknowledging the difference between Hamas massacring Israeli civilians and Israel responding in self-defense, the spokesperson for the UN Secretary General has called the Hamas-Israel war a "cycle of violence.” The UN Security Council voted on a resolution that failed to affirm Israel's right of self-defense, forcing the US to veto. Speakers:
Families of Israelis taken hostage by Hamas
Min. Eli Cohen - Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs
Amb. Gilad Erdan - Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations
Roz Rothstein, Co-Founder and CEO StandWithUs
Anne Bayefsky - Director of the Touro's Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, and a professor at the Graduate School of Jewish Studies
Bennett W. Golub, President, JCRC-NY
Michael Cohen, Eastern Director of Simon Wiesenthal Center
Sponsoring Organizations: StandWithUs, JCRC - New York, UJA Federation of New York, World Jewish Congress of North America, B’nai B’rith International, Israeli American Council, IAC for Action, Simon Wiesenthal Center, NGO Monitor, International Legal Forum, Endowment for Middle East Truth, JewBelong, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, Combat Antisemitism Movement, UK Lawyers for Israel, Club Z, Eagles’ Wings, Israel Christian Nexus, Human Rights Voices, Hasbara, StandWithUs Center for Combating Antisemitism, StandWithUs Legal Department, Zionist Organization of America, Strength to Strength.
About StandWithUs StandWithUs (SWU) is an international, nonprofit, and non-partisan Israel education organization that works to inspire and educate people of all ages about Israel, as well as challenge misinformation and fight against antisemitism. Through university fellowships, high school internships, middle school curricula, conferences, materials, social media, educational films, and missions to Israel, StandWithUs supports people around the world who want to educate their schools and communities about Israel. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Los Angeles, the organization has chapters and programs throughout the U.S., Israel, the UK, Canada, South Africa, Brazil, and the Netherlands. For the last eleven years, StandWithUs has consistently received the highest possible ratings from Charity Navigator and GuideStar, two charity watchdog groups that assess hundreds of thousands of charities in the United States. www.standwithus.com and www.facebook.com/standwithus and www.twitter.com/standwithus and www.instagram.com/standwithus.com
