Zuroff hopes Srebrenica resolution will fail, says UNGA "worst place" to vote on it

BELGRADE/JERUSALEM - Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director Efraim Zuroff said on Tuesday he hoped a UN Srebrenica genocide resolution would fail and noted that the UN General Assembly was the "worst place" to vote on the matter because it was a "political vote."

In an interview with Tanjug, Zuroff noted that passing such a resolution would be bad for the Balkans and that no genocide had taken place in Srebrenica.

"The definition of genocide is to wipe out a nation, a country or a specific national group – how could Srebrenica be declared genocide if the Serb troops allowed 25,000-33,000 people who were in Srebrenica to go home, not in any way harmed?"

"If they had wanted to carry out a genocide, they would kill all the 33,000 people, but that is not what happened," he said.

"Not every war crime is genocide," said Zuroff, a renowned Holocaust expert and Nazi-hunter.

He said that, due to the Holocaust, the term "genocide" was "the gold standard of tragedy."

"People think that if they can get their tragedy or their cause classified as genocide – at least as genocide, if not the Holocaust – that they will get much more help, much more support, financial support, (that) people will help them,” he said.

"I think the General Assembly of the UN is the worst place, the last place which should even vote on such an issue, because it is a political vote, not an analysis of historical events," Zuroff said.

Commenting on Germany's support for the resolution, he said "the Germans always like to spread the guilt around."

He said the Srebrenica genocide claims were a "total farce."

If Srebrenica is genocide, "who knows what other incidents that are not genocide" will get to the UN, and there will be requests that "they be declared also as genocide," he noted, warning of the danger of the meaning of the word "genocide" becoming "diluted" and the term becoming "meaningless."

He said the proposed resolution also violated the Dayton Agreement, under which all three entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina must agree on moves like this.

Zuroff said that, instead, the draft resolution was an independent initiative of Bosniak Muslims.

“They violated the Dayton agreement and they want to get a prize," Zuroff said.

Asked if the resolution could improve the relations among Western Balkan nations, Zuroff said it would "do the exact opposite."

"This is bad for the Balkans, this is bad for history, this is bad for the peace of the world. If everything is going to be genocide, that means nothing is genocide," he concluded.