Holocaust scholars urge Obama to sanction countries hosting Bashir

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A group of 70 Holocaust scholars has sent a letter urging the Obama administration to support a congressional amendment that would halt US foreign assistance to countries that host visits for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

The letter, sent June 14 and addressed to Atrocities Prevention Board chief Samantha Power, highlights the recent amendment sponsored by US Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) adopted in the House Appropriations Committee that would suspend non-humanitarian assistance to those countries.

In the letter, which was sponsored by the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, the signatories endorsed sanctions provisions in the Wolf amendment, saying such sanctions “encourage America’s allies to step up their commitments to fight against perpetrators of genocide.”

Rafael Medoff, director of the Wyman Institute, noted in a news release that “halting aid to those who host Bashir would be the first concrete step the US has taken to isolate the Butcher of Darfur and pave the way for his arrest. If the Obama administration is serious about punishing perpetrators of genocide, it should support the Wolf Amendment.”

Signatories of the letter included Rabbi Dr. Irving “Yitz” Greenberg, a former chairman of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum; author Dr. Daniel Goldhagen; the Rev. John Pawlikowski, who chairs the US Holocaust Museum’s Subcommittee on Church Relations; and Deborah Dwork of Clark University, founder of the first graduate program in Holocaust and genocide studies in the United States.