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The Endowment for Middle East Truth invites you to a Dr. Miriam & Sheldon G. Adelson Capitol Hill Seminar:
Featuring Member of European Parliament, Lars Adaktusson & Tomas Sandell of European Coalition for Israel
Monday, January 30, 2017 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Cannon House Office Building Room 121 Washington D.C.
With the rise of radical Islam and jihadist ideology in Europe, there have been at least a dozen major terror attacks in Western Europe since 2012, from the streets of Berlin to Paris, killing hundreds of innocent people. At the same time, there have been an increasing number of dangerous attacks on European synagogues and other Jewish targets, and anti-Semitism is growing, causing many Jewish Europeans to emigrate.
About Tomas Sandell: Tomas Sandell is a former journalist who is the founding director of European Coalition for Israel, the only non-Jewish advocacy group for Israel active both at the European Union level in Brussels and at the United Nations in New York.
The organisation was founded in 2003 by European Christians. In 2005 ECI initiated and hosted the first Holocaust Remembrance Day event in the European Parliament, which later received the patronage of the President of the European Parliament and which today has become an official EU memorial event.
In 2010 ECI commemorated the 90th anniversary of the San Remo resolution which paved the way for the creation of the modern state of Israel. From 2011-2013 ECI presented the legal foundation of the state of Israel based on the San Remo resolution, through lectures in national parliaments in Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Britain and Japan as well as in the European Parliament in Brussels and to Permanent Representatives of the United Nations Security Council in New York.
Since 2013 ECI has been active on the UN level in New York through its new initiative Forum for Cultural Diplomacy. Over the last three years the Forum has hosted high level diplomatic events at the UN which has marked the Jewish holidays and highlighted the many Jewish contributions to the international community. In 2013 the Forum initiated a process to ask the UN for an official recognition of Yom Kippur as a UN holiday. This recognition was finally granted by the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in December 2015. In April 2016 ECI co-hosted the first ever Pesach Seder inside the UN headquarters together with 35 UN ambassadors and senior UN officials.
About Lars Adaktusson: After 35 years of journalism, Mr Adaktusson was elected Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the conservative Christian Democratic Party of Sweden in 2014. Serving in the Foreign Affairs Committee, his focus is on the security around the Baltic Sea as well as the Middle East. He is Vice Chair of the Intergroup for Freedom of Religion and Belief, Vice Chairman of the EP Delegation for Afghanistan, co-chair of the Friends of Chaldeans/Syriacs/Assyrians and a member of the Friends of Kurdistan working group.
He is also Chairman of the Europe Israel Public Affairs Committee and one of the few MEPs who voiced opposition to the deal with Iran.
Since he entered politics, he has made the persecution of Christian one of his major issues. Naturally, this has brought his attention to the ongoing situation in Syria and Iraq.
He led the efforts to get the European Parliament to recognize the ongoing genocide against Christians (Chaldeans/Syriacs/Assyrians), which was done on February 4th, 2016.
In October, he was able to gather a majority of the parliament to support autonomy, within the framework of the constitution of the Republic of Iraq, for the Christians on the Nineveh Plain. As there is a risk of the area being divided by actors in the region, there is a strong need for urgent action as well as pressure towards Baghdad and Erbil in order to secure a future for the Christians in Iraq.
He has been mandated by the twelve Christian parties of Iraq to explore the possibilities for a conference, which would address federalism in Iraq, reconstruction and reconciliation and security. Hopefully, this conference will take place in Q1 of 2017 and include representatives from parties, churches and NGOs as well as parliaments and governments from the West.
