fredag 17 januari 2014

Ny skandal i UNESCO

Bara en vecka innan en  utställning om judarnas 3500 åriga koppling till Israels land skulle öppnas i UNESCO högkvarteret i Paris har utställningen inhiberats på obestämd tid.
UNESCO och  Wiesenthal Centret  har arbetat i två år med utställningen “People, Book, Land: The 3,500-year relationship of the Jewish People with the Holy Land” men när inbjudningarna till utställningen sändes ut protesterade arabländerna och UNESCO stoppade utställningen trots att allt redan var klart.
Orsaken: Utställningen kan vara ett hinder för fredsprocessen.
Påståendet är ren dårskap. Kunskap om judarnas koppling till Israels land är inget hinder för en fredlig utveckling. Tvärtom så är denna kunskap en förutsättning för att fred skall kunna uppnås.
Utställningen borde inte bara hållas i Paris utan också i Ramallah, Betlehem, Jeriko, Hebron och andra platser där de palestinska araberna bor. Palestinierna har nämligen i årtionden av sina ledare försetts med lögner som säger att judarna inte har någon historisk koppling till landet. Nu går  även UNESCO indirekt med i denna historieförfalskning genom att stoppa utställningen.
Tyvärr verkar det inte vara högt i kurs att stå upp för sanningen. (Det är kanske ett obekant begrepp inom FN)
UNESCO röstade för två år sedan att Palestina skulle bli en medlemsstat trots att det inte finns någon sådan stat som medlem i FN. Det var ett hinder i fredssträvandena eftersom det gav palestinierna en tydlig signal att de får vad de vill ha utan att förhandla med Israel.

UNESCO har även tidigare varit aktiv med att dölja och omskriva judarnas koppling till Israel och de heliga platserna.

Uppdaterad: USA och Canada protesterar mot UNESCO:s beslut:
US, Canada urge UNESCO not to postpone exhibit on Land of Israel

 Rewriting history (PMW)
"Rewriting the history of the Land of Israel in order to deny Israel's right to exist is central to Palestinian Authority (PA) policy. Long before it started the PA terror campaign (the "Intifada," 2000-2005), the PA was fighting a history war – erasing Jewish history and replacing it with a fabricated Palestinian history. This rewriting has two central goals:
1- Erase the Jewish nation's 3,000 year history in the Land of Israel;
2- Invent ancient Palestinian, Muslim and Arab histories in the land...)
Läs hela följande artikel i Jerusalem Post:
UNESCO delays exhibit on Jewish ties to Land of Israel: It could harm peace process  (Tovah Lazaroff)
 Wiesenthal Center: Delay confirms to the world that UNESCO is the official address of the Arab narrative in the Middle East.

Less than a week before the start an exhibit chronicling 3,500 years of Jewish ties to the Land of Israel, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has postponed the event, slated to open at its Paris headquarters Monday, out of concern that it could be harmful to the peace process.

“UNESCO is deeply committed to the successful outcome of the peace process in order to achieve stability in the region and we have a responsibility in ensuring that current efforts in this regard are not endangered,” wrote director-general Irina Bokova on Wednesday to the exhibit’s cohost, the Los Angels-based Simon Wiesenthal Center.
The postponement, with no alternative date, came at the request of Arab nations.  It is the latest in a series of skirmishes in which both Israelis and Palestinians have battled for narrative recognition at UNESCO.

UNESCO and the center worked on the exhibit, “People, Book, Land: The 3,500-year relationship of the Jewish People with the Holy Land,” for two years with the help of Hebrew University of Jerusalem Prof. Robert Wistrich, who designed its panels.
Each panel, Wistrich said, had been approved by UNESCO. From the biblical forefather Abraham to the State of Israel’s status as “a start-up nation,” the exhibit was designed to highlight and affirm Jewish roots in the land, on which the Jewish people alternatively flourished and suffered throughout the generations.
Initially, there was some disagreement as to the title, with the center wanting to use the phrase Land of Israel instead of UNESCO’s preferred term Holy Land. Wistrich said that throughout their history, Jews have spoken of Eretz Yisrael, or Land of Israel, whereas Holy Land is more of a Christian reference.

By Monday, both sides had agreed to the term Holy Land, and UNESCO sent out its invitations.
A day later, UNESCO received a letter from the 22 countries in its Arab Group. They were concerned that while the exhibit’s title was innocuous, the subject itself was political, and warned that hosting such an exhibit in the midst of efforts by US Secretary of State John Kerry to reach a final-status agreement for a two-state solution undermined his work, as well as UNESCO’s objectivity.
The same day, UNESCO decided to postpone the exhibit even though it had met earlier with the Wiesenthal staff in Paris to go over the final details. The exhibit was already being set up in its halls, and it already had received a congratulatory opening letter from President Shimon Peres.

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