“The horrific way in which these murders were carried out indicates the atmosphere the killers came out of–one soaked in religious hatred. This is the tragic result of decades of anti-Semitic incitement. Terror groups and Middle-Eastern dictatorships deliberately create this atmosphere in order to further their own selfish ends and draw attention away from their own failures and tyranny. They all share in the responsibility for what happened on Tuesday, and our government should be holding Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and all Middle Eastern governments to account for a zero-tolerance policy on anti-Semitism.”

    News accounts report that one of the victims, Rabbi Moshe Twersky, has a son who attends school Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, N.J. in Smith’s district.

    Rep. Smith has long been a leader in the fight against anti-Semitism. Last Tuesday he held a planning meeting with a group of European officials and activists in the fight against anti-Semitism. The meeting was on the eve of the Berlin + 10 Conference on Anti-Semitism, held by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Smith and others reviewed steps they will take in coming months to ensure that the U.S. and other governments belonging to OSCE work to implement more vigorously the OSCE commitments on fighting anti-Semitism. These include monitoring and prosecuting hate crimes, and Holocaust education and remembrance. In recent years, many of the OSCE member states have ignored their commitments. The commitments date from the 2004 Berlin Conference and Declaration, which became touchstones in the battle against anti-Semitism. From 2002 to 2004 Smith led U.S. and international parliamentarians in a movement to put anti-Semitism on the agenda of the OSCE; this resulted in the Berlin Conference and Declaration.

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