Appeal of Conscience

Foundation calling for interfaith dialogue / New York, September 2008

On 23 September 2008, following four days in New York for the UN session, Nicolas Sarkozy received the Annual World Statesman award from the Appeal of Conscience foundation. Founded in 1965 by Rabbi Arthur Schneier, this initiative calling for interfaith dialogue makes an award to a Statesman who has always defended Israel’s independence. The previous day, Elie Wiesel had already made an award to the President on behalf of the Jewish Community. At the Waldorf Astoria, in front of a thousand guests, industrial figure Serge Dassault, co-Chair of the association, painted a picture of this defender of “positive secularism” who has “always defended the religious freedom of Muslims, fought anti-Semitism, showed the respect due to the Dalai-Lama and reaffirmed the importance of Catholicism”. The head of the Dassault group was one of the many prestigious guests (Henry Kissinger was seated alongside Carla Bruni-Sarkozy). “You live in the most powerful country on the planet“, the head of the French state commented. “The world is watching you, but if you also watch the world, the world will love you more.” Before rushing off to fine-tune his Toulon speech on France’s economic policy,  Nicolas Sarkozy invited the Americans to “measure up to the attraction and the dreams that they arouse in the rest of the world”, adding for the attention of the Israeli community: “A humiliated identity is a radicalized identity. We must respect everyone. We cannot fight terrorism with terrorist methods. We fight them with our methods, respect for the rule of law, respect for human rights, and respect for procedures.“