January 17, 2014

Speaking about the United Nations (with an Update)

Recently, in the context of a discussion about indigenous rights and whether Jews are an indigenous people in Israel, I stood up for the notion of the UN, and international law, having positive effects in areas that people can easily overlook.

But not to be misconstrued, the UN has a very dark side.

The most recent example is the cancellation, days before opening, by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, of a landmark exhibit at its Paris headquarters this Monday on “The 3,500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People and the Land of Israel,” curated together with the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

According to UN Watch, whose blog is one worth following:
The surprise here isn’t that UNESCO chief Irina Bokova surrendered to the Arab League’s protest, rudely cancelling an event for which invitations were already sent out, and which involved painstaking work over two years by renowned Hebrew University scholar Robert Wistrich.
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For anyone who knows anything about UNESCO — the first UN body, in November 2011, to deem “Palestine” a state — surrender to Arab pressure on this matter was inevitable.
When it comes to UNESCO:
Despite the repeated claims of the Obama Administration that UNESCO is God’s gift to the Jews, and to humanity, the opposite is true: it is arguably the most anti-Jewish body in the entire United Nations.
If the notorious UN Human Rights Council dedicates a full 50 percent of its resolutions to demonizing the Jewish state, at UNESCO the numbers are 100 percent.
That’s right: all of UNESCO's condemnatory resolutions are against Israel.
Check out the complete post. And for those who may feel surprise by the behavior of UNESCO described by UN Watch, learn more about the situation at UNESCO, an intergovernmental UN organization that by all appearances has strayed far from its mandate defined by education, science, and culture, and traveled down the road of politics and abuse that many sensible and peace loving people plainly see. And they see right!

UPDATE: Here is a link to the letter from UNESCO to the Wiesenthal Center concerning the cancellation.

4 comments:

  1. I am shocked (shocked!) that UNESCO is doing the Jew-hating thing again.

    Wait, not really...

    How do we make the majority of people plainly see this, is I guess the question?

    Great post, School.

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    1. Thanks. As to your question, don't know if it's possible unless one is interested in truth seeking or otherwise affected by the matter, rather than indifferent and therefore ignorant and subject to disinformation.

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    2. I generally work on the assumption that ignorance is universal on many matters.

      In that case, I suppose it's a good thing the Israel haters are merely preaching to a tiny echo chamber.

      On the other hand, it would be nice to see more of our fellow liberals weighing in on the side of Israel in such fora. After all, as we all know, a lie can make its way halfway around the world before the truth even gets its shoes on...

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    3. The preachers live in a tiny echo chamber, but they have inordinate influence.

      That's what results from ignorance. Many do not realize how extreme the echo chamber can be.

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