Introduction by Wolff Bachner
Perhaps
no recent incident illustrates the unrestrained bias towards the Jewish
people better than last week’s shameful actions by UNESCO, when
Director-General Irina Bokova cancelled a major exhibit about Jewish
history in Israel; “People, Book, Land – The 3,500-year relationship of
the Jewish People with the Holy Land.” After 22 Arab states insisted the
exhibit would disrupt the Peace Process, UNESCO shamelessly caved-in to
tyranny, giving the boot the truth and honor.
Our
world has witnessed more than four decades of constant harassment of
Israel by the United Nations, illustrating a culture of prejudice and
hypocrisy that is aimed directly at the hearts of the Jewish people. To
give our readers some useful insight into the seriousness of this
bigoted and evil conduct, we begin with an introduction by The Inquisitr’s
political columnist, Wolff Bachner, and then we will be joined by our
colleague Nidra Poller, who has been following this odious story since
it began.
It
is a sad and shameful fact that the human race prefers to memorialize
dead Jews instead of celebrating a vital and thriving Jewish people.
While much of the world makes a splendid show of Holocaust remembrance,
they certainly have not shared the same enthusiasm for the rebirth of
the State of Israel.
At
the end of World War Two, Europe realized if they supported Israeli
statehood, they might wash away the stain of genocide, and at the same
time, finally get rid of their remaining “pesky Jews.” The United States
attempted to cover the shame of doing too little, too late by
begrudgingly supporting Israeli statehood in the fledgling United
Nations, after closing America’s borders to Jewish immigrants during the
war. Britain was only interested in preserving what she could of her
dying empire and subsequently broke every promise made to the Jewish
people in the Balfour Declaration.
After
the UN voted to partition the Holy Land into two states, one Jewish and
the other Arab, on November 29 1947, the Arab nations made it clear
they would never accept the existence of Israel. The only agreement the
Arabs would even consider meant that Israel would never be
re-established, the land set aside for the Jewish homeland would become
part of an Islamic state named “Palestine”, and Jews would only be
permitted to remain alive under Muslim rule as long as “they paid the
Jizya with willing submission, and felt themselves subdued.”
From
the first moment of that blessed day on May 15, 1948, when the land of
Zion was resurrected from the ashes to become modern Israel, the attempt
to destroy the Jewish state began. Unable to defeat the out gunned and
outnumbered IDF after invading Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973, the
Arabs began a propaganda war, rewriting history in an attempt to deny
the truth of 35 centuries of Jewish life in Israel. Using tools and
techniques perfected by Hitler and his Nazis, the Jew haters of the
world united to demonize Israel, and like all persistent liars, they are
beginning to succeed.
The
reasons for the latest assault on Israeli’s sovereignty are easy to
understand. The Arabs can not allow any proof that Jews have lived in
Israel for the last 3500 years to be revealed or their imaginary
narrative that Arab land was illegally given to European Jews as payment
for the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust will crumble to
pieces.
There
is much more to this story than the cancellation of an historical
exhibit. This is a struggle for the survival of Israel, cloaked in a
vicious campaign of incitement to rob the Jewish people of their
history, their identity, and their very soul. We turn to the wisdom of
Nidra Poller, who will shed more light on another shameful attempt to
steal the heritage of the Jewish Nation Of Israel and crush the spirit
of her people.
Only one thing is certain. They will never succeed. Am Yisrael Chai – The People Of Israel Are Forever.
A Slap In The Face To Every Jew – The UN’s Latest Insult To Israel
By Nidra Poller
Paris 21 January 2014
Not
surprised but shocked. That’s how Shimon Samuels, Director of
International Relations at the Simon Weisenthal Center, described his
reaction to the abrupt cancelation on the eve of the exhibition “People,
book, land / The 3,500 year relationship of the Jewish People with the
Holy Land.” The exhibition, co-sponsored by the SWC and UNESCO, had been
elaborated over a two-year period under the watchful eyes of a series
of more or less knowledgeable scholars appointed by UNESCO to weed out
any word, image, idea or pebble that might “offend.” For example,
“Israel” in the title had to be changed to the “Holy Land.” This and
countless other painful concessions granted in the interest of harmony
were not enough to spare the sensitivity of the 22 Arab delegations. In a
letter addressed to UNESCO’s Director-General Irina Bokova six days
before the scheduled opening, they demanded cancelation of the
exhibition on the grounds that the “eminently political” theme, which is
the “warhorse of the anti-peace camp” in Israel, is detrimental to the
negotiations currently spurred by Secretary of State John Kerry. Lacking
the courage to oppose the injunction but apparently ashamed of obeying
it, Madame Bokova postponed the exhibition… indefinitely.
They
had come to Paris for the January 20th inauguration; instead of which
they spoke their minds to a slim audience of journalists and members of
civil society in a meeting room of a hotel near the Champs Elysées.
“A
slap in the face to every Jew,” declared Rabbi Abraham Cooper,
associate dean of the Simon Weisenthal Center. And not only to Jews,
attested by the presence of two members of the Honorary Committee, the
Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal and the Archbishop emeritus of
Canterbury, Lord Carey of Clifton. Sansal is not surprised by the
last-minute attack mounted by the Arab delegations. “They did the same
thing to me.” Initially awarded the prize for the Arab novel, created by
Arab ambassadors to France, Sansal was rejected at the last minute
because he had attended the International Writers Festival in Jerusalem.
He is calling for an investigation into the shameful behavior of Irina
Bokova, an insult to UNESCO, to the authors and sponsors of the
exhibition, to French authorities who were supposed to attend the
inauguration, and to Arab nations for giving in to their worst impulses.
Rabbi
Cooper outlined the meticulous vetting process imposed on the
distinguished Hebrew University scholar Robert Wistrrich, author of the
exhibition. He held up photos of some of the panels: beginning with
“Children of Abraham,” “Biblical Prophets,” “If I forget thee ô
Jerusalem: Science, Technology &Human Values,” and ending with “A
People of Hope.”
There
has been an outpouring of messages of support from individuals and
groups, including members of the U.S. Congress. The American ambassador
to the UN, Samantha Power, objects to the cancelation and wants to bring
to the UN headquarters in New York. However, the State Department had
declined an invitation to join the sponsors—Israel, Canada, and
Montenegro—on grounds strangely similar to those expressed by the Arab
contingent of UNESCO, namely that the exhibition could somehow disturb
the ongoing peace negotiations.
On
the contrary, says Rabbi Cooper, telling the truth about the history of
the Jewish people is necessary. “Diplomats sign treaties but people
make peace. They have to respect each other’s narratives.” He reminds us
of a credo shared with Shimon Samuels and inspired by the example of
Simon Weisenthal: we are prepared to stand in ceremonies of remembrance
of dead Jews if we are shown respect for living Jews. Rabbi Cooper
concluded forthrightly: “UNESCO blew it big time!”
In
those difficult times, says Shimon Samuels, when synagogues in France
were torched and Jews were brutally attacked “UNESCO helped us create a
major venue, the Director General [Koichiro Matsuura] took note of
protests from the Arab delegations, and went on with the project. Now it
is clear: the very idea of presenting the Jewish narrative is anathema
to the Arab countries. And UNESCO capitulates.
The
admission of “Palestine” to UNESCO was accompanied by a ravenous hunger
for heritage. One of the first operations was seizure of the patrimony
of the Church of the Nativity. Simon Weisenthal said it starts with the
Jews but doesn’t end with the Jews. A Museum of Heritage is under
construction in Ramallah. The shocking cancelation of this exhibition is
another step on the way to erasing our existence.
The
Archbishop emeritus of Canterbury expressed his dismay at the
disrespect for those who gave so much time and money to creating the
exhibition. “We have to get to the bottom of this. What are they
objecting to?” Paying tribute to the “enormous gift of the Jewish people
to humanity,” Lord Carey asks why Jews shouldn’t be able to show pride
in their history, and hopes that UNESCO will soon admit they made a
mistake.
Richard
Rodier, Paris director of the SWC, spoke almost plaintively of the
school visits that had been scheduled, including a Muslim school. What
will they think when they learn it was cancelled at the last minute?
Rabbi Cooper deplored the “tragedy of Palestinian leadership that feels
so threatened by the facts that they launch a campaign to deny the ties…
this campaign goes to the heart of Jewish identity… We are waiting for
European leaders to speak out.” Shimon Samuels expressed the hope that
no Opening [of the exhibition] may be an opening of the eyes of the
world.
And
there’s the rub. European leaders are not speaking out. Non-Arab
delegations at UNESCO have not come forward. The American position is
not yet clear. Generalist media, with a few notable exceptions—J.P.
Lledo in the Huffington Post France, Claudio Rosett in Forbes—are not
shocked, surprised, or interested in this slap in the face. And the
usual laconic agency releases hardly convey the enormity of what has
occurred.
That
UNESCO, following in the path of its mother organization, does the
bidding of the OIC is not exactly breaking news. The revelation lies in
the unashamed admission by the Arab pressure group that the current
peace negotiations are jeopardized by the fact that the Jewish people
are bound to the Land of Israel for 3,500 years and forever. Because the
negotiations are not stalemated by the lack of factual information.
There is not some kind of all too human misunderstanding of the Other.
The purpose of the negotiations is precisely to deny the ties between
Judaism, the Jews, and the land of Israel. The purpose of the
negotiations is to abruptly, at the last minute, cancel Jewish Israel
the way the pressure group canceled the exhibition.
Their
action at UNESCO is perfectly logical. Two years of painful
concessions, chipping away at the intellectual sovereignty of the Simon
Weisenthal Center, the author of the exhibition and his collaborators,
the sponsors and honorary committee, two years of conciliation,
compromise, and swallowing small insults did not lead to UNESCO and the
SWC inaugurating side by side in peace and security an exhibition that
expresses a Jewish view of history. It led to its real destination:
elimination.
Nidra Poller
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