At The Holocaust Remembrance event in Helsinki 27th January 2015 (h/t Israel Nyheter)
Just these days KEPA, the organizers of the annual World Village Festival in Helsinki, decided to ban a Jewish Zionist NGO – KKL – from participating in this year's festival. KKL or JNF was founded in 1901 in order to purchase land in the Land of Israel. The same organization is today involved in nature preservation, forestation and water management. KKL is an accredited United Nation's NGO.
The main themes of this year's World Village Festival are Africa and the Middle East. The existence of the Jewish state in this region probably does not fit into the organizers' agenda. So KEPA, the organizing body of WVF funded by public Finnish money, chose to accept general unspecified allegations and accusations raised from those who deny Israel's right to exist, and simply decided to get rid of this nuisance.
I wonder which of KEPA's fundamental values: Sustainable development, Environmental protection, Fairness, Tolerance, Equality, Will for peace, Human rights and Democracy were served by this outrageous decision. I would also be interested to know if all other exhibitors and partners of this festival were measured by the same scale.
"The Jewish Community of Helsinki is still welcome to apply to become an exhibitor at the festival and to propose factual program for the festival". KEPA's representative wrote and added "We see Judaism as part of Finnish culture, and even if it would not be, we would still welcome it to the Festival". Simply said, "we're not anti-Semitic, just anti-Zionists and anti-Israel". According to the working definition of anti-Semitism, it's exactly the same.
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