It's Official .....the 'Antisemite inmates' are about to take over the UNESCO 'Asylum'.

Only candidate for chair of UNESCO's Executive Board is rep of the Islamic Republic of Iran. (ToI).

In November, the Israel-bashing UN cultural agency will choose a new director-general and fill two other key positions; top candidates hail from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

Israel’s relationship with UNESCO is complicated, to say the least. But later this year, the organization will elect a new leadership, and officials in Jerusalem are fretting over a possible “Islamic troika” in three key jobs who would seek to further advance the UN cultural organization’s anti-Israel agenda.

Of the nine people vying to succeed Irina Bokova as director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, four hail from Arab states and one of them — a Qatar minister — is considered a frontrunner.

The leading contenders for the post of chairman of UNESCO’s General Conference hail from Saudi Arabia and Morocco, according to Israel’s ambassador to the organization, Carmel Shama-Hacohen.

And the sole candidate to head the UNESCO Executive Board is from Iran.

“Under certain circumstances an Islamic troika could be created, which would be liable to push the organization to new depths of anti-Israel politicization,” warned Shama-Hacohen.

At the conclusion of the 39th session of UNESCO’s General Conference in November, delegates from all 195 member states — including the State of Palestine, which joined in 2011 — will vote for a new director-general. The leading candidates for the job are China’s Qian Tang, UNESCO’s assistant director-general for education; French Culture Minister Audrey Azoulay, who is Jewish; and Qatari Culture Minister Dr. Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al-Kawari.

Al-Kawari’s nomination has drawn the ire of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which two years ago complained about anti-Semitic material featured prominently at a book fair held under the auspices of the Qatari education ministry.

Also in November, UNESCO will elect new chairs for its General Conference and its Executive Board.

The only candidate for the chair of the Executive Board is Ahmad Jalali, who is currently Iran’s ambassador to UNESCO.

A liberal-minded scholar, Jalali is widely respected within the organization. But since he hails from a theocratic regime sworn to Israel’s destruction, Israeli diplomats are uneasy about him assuming the position. Read the full story here.

US Official Criticizes New Draft of UNESCO Resolution Labeling Israeli Presence in Jerusalem ‘Illegal’.

US Official Criticizes New Draft of UNESCO Resolution Labeling Israeli Presence in Jerusalem ‘Illegal’. (algemeiner).

The latest draft of a resolution entitled “Occupied Palestine” to be voted on this Tuesday by UNESCO, the United Nations cultural agency, has been sharply condemned by a US official.

The resolution – submitted by Arab states Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar and Sudan –  declares as its aim the “safeguarding of the cultural heritage of Palestine and the distinctive character of East Jerusalem.” The resolution goes on to attack Israel in the harshest terms, stating that all measures taken by the Jewish state in its capital are “illegal” and “null and void.”

“UNESCO is too often used as a vehicle by member states inclined to delegitimize the State of Israel,” the US official told The Algemeiner. “Although several of these anti-Israel resolutions are typically adopted biannually by UNESCO, over time they have become increasingly political in nature and now question Israel’s basic claim to historic sites.”

Although the resolution — a copy of which was obtained by The Algemeiner — reaffirms “the importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls for the three monotheistic religions,” it continues by asserting that “all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, which have altered or purport to alter the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and in particular the ‘basic law’ on Jerusalem, are null and void and must be rescinded forthwith.”

The Basic Law on Jerusalem was passed by the Knesset in August 1980. It affirms that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel.”

The mention in the current draft of the “Holy City” of Jerusalem is a slight modification of the original draft, which read: “Any action taken by Israel, the occupying power, to impose its laws, jurisdiction, and administration on the city of Jerusalem, are illegal and therefore null and void and have no validity whatsoever.” Read the full story here.

"Judaism was founded over 3500 years ago; Islam dates to the seventh century. The resolution flies in the face of both the Bible, bedrock of civilization, archaeological evidence, and scholarship." 

Abbas's BFF Pope Francis better releases a new version of the Bible as well. 

Video - Secrets of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron

To combat the recent United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) resolution declaring Judaism has no connection to the holy sites in Israel and educate the growing wave of Bible deniers, the Jews of Hebron have made a simple video with a powerful message: the story of Abraham’s purchase and his covenant with God stand as solid as the stones surrounding the cave.

Hebron is the city of the patriarchs as written in the Bible. This claim should be obvious, but a global trend is developing in which history is being rewritten, and basic tenets of the Bible are erased. Yishai Fleisher, the international spokesman for the Hebron Jewish community, explained how this happened.

“100 years ago, everyone knew the stories of the Bible,” Fleisher told Breaking Israel News. “There was no way anyone could say these lies back then. Because the Bible has lost its media presence, it is now possible to pull the wool over people’s eyes about these basic truths.”

For those who accept the Bible, the Jewish claim to Hebron is self-evident. For those who reject it, this basic truth is not so clear.

“Outside of the Bible, there is very little clear information about the holy places,” noted Fleisher, “Which allows organizations like UNESCO to create a false narrative. UNESCO is a legitimate arm of the jihad.”

Read the full story here.

Vatican and Israel criticize UNESCO: no one can deny biblical history.

Vatican and Israel criticize UNESCO: no one can deny biblical history. (AN).

The Vatican has joined the critics of the UNESCO decision to use only the name Arabic name of holy places in East Jerusalem, leaving out their Hebrew version.

The Joint Commission of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel's Delegation for Relations with the Catholic Church and the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews issued a joint statement noting that the UNESCO decision’s denies on political and polemical grounds the relationship between Jews and Temple Mount and the biblical story.

The communique states that it is necessary now more than ever to promote peace at a time when violence is perpetrated in the name of religion. In view of today’s challenges and human tragedies, it goes on to emphasize the importance of religious leaders setting an example for tolerance and respect.

The parties also promised that they would try to persuade more effectively their respective authorities to act in the most tolerant and humane ways towards “others” and the weak.

Pope Francis’s recent remarks to representatives of various religions are particularly appropriate. "May we reject the aimless paths of disagreement and closed-mindedness. May it never happen again that the religions, because of the conduct of some of their followers, convey a distorted message, out of tune with that of mercy. Sadly, not a day passes that we do not hear of acts of violence, conflict, kidnapping, terrorist attacks, killings and destruction. It is horrible that at times, to justify such barbarism, the name of a religion or the name of God himself is invoked.

May there be clear condemnation of these iniquitous attitudes that profane the name of God and sully the religious quest of mankind. May there instead be fostered everywhere the peaceful encounter of believers and genuine religious freedom." (Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to representatives of different religions, Vatican, 3 November 2016).

After more than half a century of Jewish-Catholic reconciliation and fruitful dialogue, Christians and Jews are called to work together to help create peace for the whole human family, fulfilling the words of the psalmist: "Love and truth will meet; justice and peace will kiss” (Psalm 85:11).

The parties also stressed the importance of educating the new generations to promote peace and mutual respect.

Video - The Bible according to UNESCO - The Movie

The #Bible according to #UNESCO - The Movie pic.twitter.com/JAXLZUXTtR

— Israel Foreign Min. (@IsraelMFA) October 14, 2016

UNESCO to vote on text describing Jewish Temple Mt, Western Wall as Muslim holy sites.

Source.

UNESCO to vote on text describing Jewish Temple Mt, Western Wall as Muslim holy sites. (ToI).

A group of 39 US lawmakers called on UNESCO to oppose a resolution that would challenge Jewish and Christian historical ties to the Old City of Jerusalem.

In a letter initiated by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida) to the Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the lawmakers from both houses of Congress slammed what they called the UN’s “obsessive hostility towards Israel.”

That hostility, they wrote, “will be on display yet again this week as UNESCO considers another blatantly biased resolution that unjustly singles out our close ally Israel with false accusations and criticism, and attempts to erase the specific deep-rooted, historical connection of Jews and Christians to Jerusalem, Israel’s eternal capital.”

According to the lawmakers, “the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, along with the Western Wall, where Jews from all over the world have come to pray, are described exclusively as Muslim holy sites and referred to only by their Muslim names. When the Western Wall is referenced, it is only with quotation marks, implying that the title is unofficial and not based on historic fact.”

That hostility, they wrote, “will be on display yet again this week as UNESCO considers another blatantly biased resolution that unjustly singles out our close ally Israel with false accusations and criticism, and attempts to erase the specific deep-rooted, historical connection of Jews and Christians to Jerusalem, Israel’s eternal capital.”

Ros-Lehtinen slammed the resolution’s “ill intent.”

Its purpose, she said, was “to deny the historical record of the Jewish peoples’ connections to their holiest city and to imply that Jerusalem is inconsequential to Jews and Christians, with the intent of laying the groundwork for additional UN efforts to delegitimize Israel and undermine its status as the capital of the Jewish State,” she wrote. Read the full story here.

Video - Praying for Palmyra: Russian Mariinskyen symphony orchestra performs concert honoring victims of Syria war

Video - ‘Cultural cleansing is human tragedy of Middle East’ – UNESCO chief.

The persecution of people based on their ethnicity and the deprivation of their intangible heritage has become part of the human tragedy in the Middle East, Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO told RT’s Oksana Boyko in ‘Worlds Apart’.

Islamic State militants Terrorists (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) are engaged in the “cultural cleansing” of the Middle East, Bokova said, describing it as a “human tragedy.”

When one “persecutes people on the basis of their ethnicity or religion, destroys their monuments, their temples, deprives them of their intangible heritage, attacks their identities – they stop being humane,” she said.

She stressed that there is an urgent need to curb the industrial-scale looting of archaeological sites and trafficking of goods in order to cut the extremists’ financing.

“We should not forget that this is a criminal activity that further finances terrorism, extremist activities, persecution of people. It’s not just looting. It’s not just because we love art that we are doing this. It has a deep meaning for peace and security,” she said.

Bokova reiterated the importance of UN Security Council Resolution 2199 introduced by Russia and adopted in February. The resolution condemned the destruction of cultural heritage and enforced legally-binding measures to counter the illicit trafficking of antiquities and cultural objects from Iraq and Syria.Read the full story here.

Alexandria court cancels Jewish Abu Hasira moulid, and listed no longer on monuments list.

Alexandria court cancels controversial moulid of Jewish saint "Abu Hasira", also removes from the Egyptian antiquities and monuments list. (AlAhram).

Court says the shrine in the northern Delta is no longer a monument while antiquities officials say it was never a monument in the first place.

An Alexandria administrative court on Monday banned the controversial annual religious festival moulid of Jewish saint "Abu Hasira" in the Beheira governorate. The court also ordered the removal of the shrine for the revered Jewish rabbi from the Egyptian antiquities and monuments list.

The administrative court also ordered the government to publish this in the state’s official journal and to inform UNESCO of the decision.

The shrine of Abu Hasira and the Jewish cemetery next to it were registered as a monument according to the culture minister decision in January 2001.

The court also rejected a request by Tel Aviv to transfer the remains of the Jewish rabbi to Israel as it violates Islamic teachings prohibiting the exhumation of graves.

The court revealed in its debriefing that Israel requested from UNESCO to transfer the body of the revered Rabbi to east Jerusalem was another attempt to “Hebrewise” the city.

An unnamed official in Egypt's antiquities ministry told Reuters' Aswat Masriya that the ministry has not yet informed of the ruling by the court.

The only authority in Egypt officially authorised to strip a cite of its classification as a monument is the technical permanent committee within the antiquities ministry, the official added.

The official added that if the ruling violated Egypt’s antiquities protection law, the ministry would appeal it.

Dr. Mohamed Fawzy, the head of Islamic and Coptic antiquities sector in the antiquities ministry told Ahram Online that unlike what the Shrine of Abu Hasira was not officially registered as an official Jewish monument in Egypt in the first place.

This is not the first time the administrative court has banned the annual festival of Abu Hasira. In 2001 the Alexandria administrative court also cancelled the celebrations. The celebrations were again cancelled in 2012 by Egyptian authorities who cited political instability.

The pilgrimmage of Jews to the annual celebration of the birth of the Moroccan rabbi who is believed to have died in the Egyptian village of Damatiuh during the 1880s has often caused civil unrest in the village spurred by locals who refuse to normalise relations with Israel.

The local community in Damatiuh also maintains that the Jewish rabbi is not buried in Egypt and was actually buried in Morocco.

The administrative court added thet the 2001 ministry of culture decision was invalid, historically inaccurate and negatively affects the Egyptian heritage. Hmmmm.....Welcome to 'Islamist light'


 Related: Egyptian media spinning Abuhatzeira tomb ban

Author of UNESCO’s nixed Israel exhibit: "UNESCO is fine with organizing Holocaust exhibitions,They love dead Jews."

Author of UNESCO’s nixed Israel exhibit: "UNESCO is fine with organizing Holocaust exhibitions,They love dead Jews."(TOI).

Speaking to The Times of Israel, Wistrich – the exhibition’s sole author – said it would be a “euphemism” to say he was unhappy about the sudden death of an exhibition that took him nearly two years of hard work to complete. It showed UNESCO’s “contempt for the Jewish people and its history,” he said. 

 “This is such a betrayal. To do it in this way is so disgraceful,” fumed Wistrich, who directs the Hebrew University’s Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism and is one of the world’s leading authorities in the field.

An “appalling act,” the cancellation “completely destroyed any claim that UNESCO could possibly have to be representing the universal values of toleration, mutual understanding, respect for the other and narratives that are different, engaging with civil society organizations and the importance of education.

Because there’s one standard for Jews, and there’s another standard for non-Jews, especially if they’re Arabs, but not only.”

UNESCO’s decision to cancel the exhibit allows just one conclusion, Wistrich added: “That at the end of the day, their mandate, which is to be the United Nations’ organization for the promotion of education, culture and science, is in fact subjected, entirely, to political considerations.”

Wistrich also claimed that UNESCO only agreed to host the exhibition to improve its image in the United States, hoping to get the administration to start funding the organization again, after it stopped paying when UNESCO admitted “Palestine” as a member. 

The historian also took aim at the Obama administration, suggesting the State Department was schizophrenic because it had refused to cosponsor the exhibition — invoking the same reasons that Arab member states used when working successfully to torpedo it — yet later condemned the fact that it was canceled.

On January 14, Abdullah Alneaimi, the head of UNESCO’s Arab Group, which consists of 22 member states, wrote a letter to the organization’s Director General Irina Bokova expressing “deep concern” over the exhibition, arguing it would disturb the current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Bukova quickly capitulated. There remained “unresolved issues relating to potentially contestable textual and visual historical points, which might be perceived by Member States as endangering the peace process,” UNESCO said in a press release published Friday. “In this context, regrettably, UNESCO had to postpone the inauguration of the exhibition.”

In a letter to the leaders of the Wiesenthal Center, Bukova recalled her “very firm dedication to building consensus in all UNESCO decisions and resolutions taken by Member States on issues relating to the Middle East.”

“What a mealy-mouthed piece of hypocritical double talk that really is,” Wistrich said of the letter the Arab states sent to Bukova. “And the fact that the secretary general then, within the hour almost, announced that the exhibition was suspended, postponed, de-facto canceled, tells you a great deal of the really cringing capitulation of UNESCO to the first sign of any pressure.”

There was no consultation with the Wiesenthal Center, or anyone else, ahead of the exhibition’s indefinite postponement, according to Wistrich. “It was simply done in an arbitrary act of total cynicism and, really, contempt for the Jewish people and its history.” 

The thought of this exhibition being literally locked up in the halls of UNESCO in Paris, with no one permitted to look at it, is a symbolic encapsulation of how the international community as represented in the UN relates to the history of the Jewish people, Wistrich said. “This is something to be censored; no narrative that doesn’t fit the currently prevailing Arab narrative is to be permitted.”

UNESCO is fine with organizing Holocaust exhibitions, Wistrich allowed. “They love dead Jews. And they’re more than ready to be very accommodating in drawing the universal lessons of how this must never happen again.” 

However, the idea “that Jews are alive and well and fighting and struggling to determine their own fate in their own homeland is something much more difficult to stomach, for political reasons that we know.”

Citing UNESCO’s “track record” of anti-Israel bias, Wistrich said he was skeptical from the very beginning about the organization hosting an exhibition that would surely displease the Arab members.

In 2011, UNESCO admitted “Palestine” and since then Israeli and Palestinian officials have sparred about its work in Jerusalem. In June 2012, UNESCO approved a resolution slamming Israel over its Jerusalem policies.

Starting in 2011, the US administration, which hitherto had been the organization’s main benefactor, annually contributing $18 million — 22% of its total budget — withdrew funding.

“No doubt one of [UNESCO's] major considerations when they initially agreed to this project, which goes so much against the dominant narrative at UNESCO and UN organizations, was that they thought that perhaps this would lead them back into creating a better image for themselves in the US and this might lead to the reversing of that decision.”

But Wistrich, who grew up in Britain before immigrating to Israel, also criticized the way Washington dealt with the situation. The State Department had been repeatedly asked to cosponsor the exhibition, and “after sitting on the fence for a long time they declined, using a very similar argument to that used by the Arab delegates,” Wistrich said.

Earlier this month, Kelly Siekman, the State Department’s director of UNESCO affairs, wrote to the Wiesenthal Center: “At this sensitive juncture in the ongoing Middle East peace process, and after thoughtful consideration with review at the highest levels, we have made the decision that the United States will not be able to cosponsor the current exhibit during its display at UNESCO headquarters. As a rule, the United States does not cosponsor exhibits at UNESCO without oversight of content development from conception to final production.”

“That makes the US, passively at least, complicit in the UNESCO decision,” Wistrich charged. “Because in my view UNESCO would not have felt that it could, with impunity, act in this way if the US had been a cosponsor.”

The State Department later condemned the exhibition’s postponement, and said it had engaged with senior UNESCO officials to affirm its strong interest in “seeing the exhibit proceed as soon as possible.”

“When one looks at it from the outside, one is tempted to see [the State Department's behavior] as an example of schizophrenia,” Wistrich said.

It is legitimate not to want to cosponsor an event, he allowed, but the State Department gave “a bogus reason, even if that’s what they believe.”

The exhibition “has nothing to do with the peace process,” he asserted. “If the US had agreed to cosponsor — which is not such a dramatic thing for it to do — then probably this would not have happened. You can’t really have it both ways. This expresses something of the ambivalence of the Obama administration.”

US, Canada urge UNESCO not to postpone exhibit on Land of Israel.

US, Canada urge UNESCO not to postpone exhibit on Land of Israel.(Jpost).HT: IsraelMatzav.

The United States and Canada called on UNESCO to rescind its sudden decision to suspend an exhibit on Jewish ties to the Land of Israel – due to open at its Paris headquarters on Monday – in response to a protest by Arab states who fear it could damage the peace process.

“UNESCO’s decision is wrong and should be reversed,” said US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power on Friday. “The United States has engaged at senior levels to urge UNESCO to allow this exhibit to proceed as soon as possible.”

”UNESCO is supposed to be fostering discussion and interaction between civil society and member states, and organizations such as the Wiesenthal Center have a right to be heard and to contribute to UNESCO’s mission,” said Power.

In spite of her harsh rebuke, the US had opted not to sponsor the exhibit, which bore the sponsorship seal of only three countries, Canada, Israel and Montenegro.

Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs said on Friday there “is no appropriate rationale to delay the exhibition and [we are] deeply disappointed by the decision made to postpone it. Our ambassador to UNESCO has written to the secretary-general of that organization urging her to take all necessary action for this exhibition to go ahead as long planned,” it said.

Should UNESCO fail to open the exhibit as agreed upon, the Wiesenthal Center plans to hold a press conferences in Paris and Los Angeles on Monday to show its panels to the public.

Wiesenthal dean and founder Rabbi Marvin Hier said all the exhibit panels had been vetted and approved by UNESCO.

...UNESCO’s Arab Group objected to the exhibit not because of the peace process, but because it shows the Jews had a 3,500-year relationship with the Land of Israel, Hier charged.

He recalled remarks he had made at a Los Angeles ceremony about the exhibit in 2012 together with UNESCO director- general Irina Bokova.

“I said then, it is well known to the entire world and I assume to anyone who has read the Bible, that Isaiah was not born in Portugal; Jeremiah did not live in France and Ezekiel did not live in Monaco,” he said. “They lived in the Land of Israel as did King David and King Solomon.”

World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder said: “It is sad that Arabs deny the 3,500- year connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, especially when that connection is part of their own tradition.
With this decision, UNESCO has done a disservice to the peace process and implicitly endorsed Arab rejectionism.Read the full story here.

UNESCO delays (indefinitely) exhibit on Jewish ties to Land of Israel: It could harm peace process.

UNESCO delays (indefinitely) exhibit on Jewish ties to Land of Israel: It could harm peace process.(Jpost)HT: IsraelMatzav.

UNESCO has accepted an Arab League request to 'postpone' (indefinitely) an exhibit on the Jewish people's 3,500-year connection to the land of Israel. The exhibit was to take place in UNESCO's Paris headquarters, and was to be co-sponsored by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. The exhibit was designed by Hebrew University Professor Robert Wistrich, the author of a seminal book on anti-Semitism.

The 'reason' for the 'postponement' is that it could 'harm the peace process.'

The center sent out invitations earlier this month using the phrase “Land of Israel.” 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.

In a letter, Hier immediately called on Bokova to reconsider and not cave in to the “bullying” of the Arab Group, particularly given that UNESCO experts had already vetted and approved the exhibit. He recalled how he had obtained her verbal approval in October 2011, on the same day that UNESCO member states voted to recognize “Palestine” as a state and accord it full membership rights.

That approval, he wrote, was followed by a public signing ceremony in 2012 at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. Hier provided The Jerusalem Post with a photograph from that event, which showed Bokova standing by a panel for the exhibit.

“Let’s be clear,” Hier wrote in his letter to Bokova, “the Arab Group’s protest is not over any particular content in the exhibition, but rather the very idea of it – that the Jewish people did not come to the Holy Land only after the Nazi Holocaust, but trace their historical and cultural roots in that land for three-anda- half millennia.

If anything will derail hopes for peace and reconciliation among the people of the Middle East, it will be by surrendering to the forces of extremism and torpedoing the opening of this exhibition – jointly vetted and co-organized by UNESCO and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.”

Bokova, in turn, said UNESCO successfully works with many Jewish groups, and just this November held an event with B’nai B’rith about the Yiddish language. But, she said, consensus was important to the organization.

“Having in mind the delicate phase that the peace negotiations are entering, I have no choice but to take seriously the concerns raised in the letter of the chairperson of the Arab Group,” she wrote.

Israel, which is sponsoring the exhibit along with Canada and Montenegro, expressed dissatisfaction.

“We regret that such an important exhibition has been undermined by inappropriate considerations,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor, “and we hope a solution can be found to enable UNESCO to hold the exhibit as originally planned.”Canada had no response as of press time.

If the exhibit does not open on January 20, the Wiesenthal Center plans to hold press conferences in Paris and Los Angeles to show it to the media.Read the full story here.

Islamist Turkey Joins UN Cultural Committee: Wolf in Charge of Guarding Sheep.

A ceremony marked the return of the 173 items that were stolen from Orthodox and Maronite Christian churches in the Turkish Cypriot northern part Cyprus

Islamist Turkey Joins UN Cultural Committee: Wolf in Charge of Guarding Sheep.HT: AINA.

Earlier this year, I wrote a column describing the Turkish government's bullying tactics to reclaim antique objects from European and American museums. It is ironic that Turkey, one of the greatest looters and pilferers of other nations' cultural heritage, would so aggressively demand the return of these antiquities.

Just in case its threats fail to work, Turkey embarked on a new course of action last month -- bribery!

Turkish Education Minister Nabi Avci announced on November 10: "Turkey has doubled its contribution to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) amid the financial crisis it faces with the United States and Israel not paying their membership fees."

Minister Avci did not even attempt to hide the real reason for Turkey's generosity. He disclosed that "significant progress has been made in Turkey's candidacy for the UNESCO World Heritage Committee elections to be held on November 19." Indeed, the Turkish Minister's prediction came true when his country was elected to the 21-member World Heritage Committee for the next four years.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry immediately announced that as a member of that Committee, "Turkey intends to share, at the international scale, the experience and knowledge it has accumulated in managing and protecting its own 11 world heritage areas representing different layers of Anatolian civilization, including Neolithic, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman periods."

Electing Turkey to a body that is supposed to preserve cultural assets is akin to putting a wolf in charge of guarding sheep. Turkey should not be eligible to serve on the UNESCO committee or on any other UN agency because of its long record as a major violator of human rights and the hegemonic threat it presents to the peace and security of neighboring states.

Not surprisingly, the Foreign Ministry's announcement made no mention of the numerous Armenian religious and cultural monuments in present-day Turkey. Only in recent years, with the intent of easing the way for its European Union candidacy as well as generating income from foreign tourists, the Turkish government has renovated a handful of Armenian and Greek churches, after decades of neglect and systematic desecration and destruction.

Now that Turkey has undeservedly become a member of the World Heritage Committee, Armenia's UNESCO representative has the opportunity during each meeting for the next four years to point out the irony Turkey faces -- tasked with preserving cultural monuments, while remaining one of the biggest confiscators of other nations' cultural heritage.

Murat Suslu, Turkey's director-general of cultural heritage and museums, told the New York Times with a straight face: "We only want back what is rightfully ours…. If you come to my house and you steal precious objects from me, do I not have the right to get them back?"

Mr. Suslu, who insisted that thievery and looting are wrong no matter when they occurred, must be reminded that Turkey can make such claims only after returning to Alevis, Arabs, Armenians, Assyrians, Cypriots, Greeks, and Kurds, what is rightfully theirs!

Just as ironic was the statement made by Ertugrul Gunay, Turkey's Culture Minister, to the Economist magazine: "I wholeheartedly believe that each and every antiquity in any part of the world should eventually go back to its homeland. Even if these objects are made of stone, just as people have souls, so do animals, plants and monuments. Taking a monument away destabilizes the world and is disrespectful to history."

Instead of falsely presenting their country as a looting victim, Turkish officials should acknowledge that they are in possession of numerous antiquities confiscated by their Ottoman predecessors while occupying over a dozen neighboring countries.

For example, the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great, discovered near Sidon, Lebanon in 1887, was shipped to Istanbul's Archaeology Museum under orders from Sultan Abdul Hamid II, where it is still kept as one of its most prized possessions. It's now up to Lebanon to demand the return of this precious cultural treasure from Turkey! Also, Saudi Arabia has the right to reclaim a plethora of sacred Islamic relics removed from Mecca by the Ottoman authorities in the 19th century.

Turkey's membership in UNESCO's World Heritage Committee provides a unique opportunity for Armenians and other dispossessed nations to draw the world's attention to the Turkish government's illegal confiscation of their cultural heritage and demand their immediate return.
By Harut Sassounian
http://asbarez.com

Related: The looting of northern Cyprus by the Turkish forces has been described as “one of the most systematic examples of the looting of art since World War II”.^[31][30] Archaeological sites, museums, churches, monasteries, castles, libraries, and private art collections have all been affected by the looting of the northern area of Cyprus; icons, frescoes, archaeological artifacts, and cultural heritage have been stripped from areas around the island and have been taken to places all over the world or simply destroyed.^[32] Some believe that this has been done to ‘Turkify’ the northern region of the country and erase the characteristics of the Cypriot predecessors, while people like Aydin Dikmen have been working to make money off of cultural heritage artifacts by selling them in international markets.^[28][32] The amount of destruction of Islamic sites and artifacts in the south is not even comparable to the looting and destruction of the north; previous Christian sites in the north have been destroyed or transformed for other uses, while the icons and mosaics have been dismantled into smaller pieces, helping them to deteriorate at a fast pace and eventually be lost forever.

In 1982, in the weekly magazine Olay, the Turkish Cypriot journalist, Mehmet Yasin, highlighted the problem of the trafficking of stolen Byzantine art from orthodox churches in Northern Cyprus.^[7] Christopher Hitchens, in his book Hostage to History: Cyprus from the Ottomans to Kissinger, quoted Yasin:

"Haven't you heard that the 2,000-year-old Christian church in Cyprus, St. Barnabus's Church, has been robbed? Haven't you heard that 35 icons were stolen, that 11 of them were found in Kythrea, that 11 were retrieved at Ankara airport while being smuggled out, and that the rest are lost"^[7]

In January 2002, BBC News noted that since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974:

"... more than 500 churches have been under Turkish control. Some have been destroyed, many ransacked - icons and frescoes have disappeared. It is one of the most systematic examples of the looting of art since World War II."^[8]

"... over the last 28 years, the heritage of the church in northern Cyprus has fallen into the hands of smugglers and vandals."^[8]

In August 2004, Associated Press reported a bomb explosion at St. Mamas church, that was clearly intended to deter the planned first church service to be held there in decades:

"The attack followed media reports that Turkish Cypriot extremist groups had vowed to try to prevent services planned next week at the Saint Mamas church to celebrate its namesake's saint's day.^[9]

"The church, which has been used as a museum for Orthodox icons since the invasion, was empty at the time of the blast that damaged the main church door, its ceiling and shattered windows of both the church and nearby buildings."^[9]

Israel, US lose UNESCO voting right in dispute.

Israel, US lose UNESCO voting right in dispute.(ToI).

PARIS (AP) — American influence in culture, science and education around the world took a high-profile blow Friday after the US automatically lost voting rights at UNESCO, after missing a crucial deadline to repay its debt to the world’s cultural agency.

The US hasn’t paid its dues to the Paris-based UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in protest over the decision by world governments to make Palestine a UNESCO member in 2011. Israel suspended its dues at the same time and also lost voting rights on Friday.

Under UNESCO rules, the US had until Friday morning to resume funding or explain itself, or it automatically loses its vote. A UNESCO official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue, said nothing was received from either the US or Israel.

The suspension of US contributions, which account for $80 million a year — 22 percent of UNESCO’s overall budget — brought the agency to the brink of a financial crisis and forced it to cut or scale back American-led initiatives such as Holocaust education and tsunami research over the past two years.

It has worried many in Washington that the US is on track to becoming a toothless UNESCO member with a weakened voice in international programs fighting extremism through education, and promoting gender equality and press freedoms.

The UNESCO tension has prompted new criticism of US laws that force an automatic funding cutoff for any UN agency with Palestine as a member. The official list of countries that lose their votes was expected to be read aloud on Saturday before the entire UNESCO general conference.

Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO, Nimrod Barkan, told The Associated Press that his country supported the Unites States’ decision, “objecting to the politicization of UNESCO, or any international organization, with the accession of a non-existing country like Palestine.”

“The United States must not voluntarily forfeit its leadership in the world community,” Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat from Minnesota, told The Associated Press in an email.

With efforts by President Barack Obama to get the money restored having failed or stalled, Ellison plans to introduce legislation in Congress to overturn what he calls the “antiquated” laws that automatically halted the flow of funds to the agency from November 2011.

The Obama administration has proposed language to amend the legislation, but it remains on the table amid recent US budget setbacks.

For some it’s a question of sooner rather than later, with the US racking up arrears to UNESCO of some $220,000 a day, which it will have to pay back if it ever wants to fill the empty chair and get back the vote.

“Paying off three years is manageable, but it indeed becomes much more difficult if you allow many years to pass and the bill gets larger and larger and larger,” said Esther Brimmer, former US assistant secretary of state for international organizations.

The Palestinian Ambassador to UNESCO, Elias Sanbar, said other countries are beginning to make up for the US shortfall.“Is this in the interest of the US, to be replaced?” he asked.Read the full story here.

UNESCO silent as Hamas destroys heritage site, Obama wants to restore $77.7 million in funding that was taken away from UNESCO fund .

UNESCO silent as Hamas destroys heritage site, Obama wants to restore $77.7 million in funding that was taken away from UNESCO fund .HT: IsraelMatzav.

Hamas has partially destroyed a 3,000-year old seaport in Gaza that is a UNESCO World Heritage site in order to expand a military training facility (Hat Tip: Israel Daily News Stream). UNESCO has greeted the move with silence. Meanwhile, with the United States trillions of dollars in debt and with basic necessities for Americans being subject to automatic sequester, the Obama administration has asked to restore $77.7 million in funding that was taken away from UNESCO when it made 'Palestine' a member (Hat Tip: Monica S).
This is from the first link.

Earlier last month, amid overwhelming criticism from public figures and nongovernmental organizations, the military wing of the Islamic movement of Hamas, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, bulldozed a part of the ancient Anthedon Harbor in northern Gaza along the Mediterranean Sea. The Brigades damaged the harbor in order to expand its military training zone, which was initially opened on the location in 2002, according to Ejla.

The Anthedon seaport, which dates back over 3,000 years to the Mycenaean era, is considered one of the most important sites in the Middle East and is the oldest harbor in Gaza.

It was designated an international heritage site by UNESCO in 2012. The location was discovered in 1997 on the space of 180,000 square meters. It contains mosaic floors with historical pillars from the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic ages.(Read the Complicated Details. Of course Hamas said they would do otherwise and then changed their mind)

The administration argued that the defunding legislation “runs counter to U.S. national security interests by allowing the Palestinians to isolate the United States and prevent the active U.S. engagement necessary to pursue U.S. policy objectives in international organizations.”
“In turn, the United States would lose influence and eventually voting rights in international organizations,” it ....as if all the money we have spent on Palestine so far has given influence?Hmmmm......If the Taliban can blow up the Bamiyan Buddha Statues, why couldn't Hamas bulldoze a Heritage site?Read the full story here.

UNESCO condemns Palestinian Nonprofit group that published blood libel.

UNESCO condemns Palestinian Nonprofit group that published blood libel.(FreeBeacon).The United Nations has condemned a Palestinian nonprofit that recently accused Jewish people of using “Christian blood” during the Passover seder.
Miftah, a Palestinian nonprofit that has received funding from many Western governments and foundations, came under fire for publishing an article accusing “the Jews [of using] the blood of Christians in the Jewish Passover.”
Miftah apologized Monday after U.S. Jewish groups and others expressed outrage over the blood libel.
The U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which has partnered with Miftah on various projects, rebuked the group Tuesday.
“UNESCO condemns all forms of hate literature, including anti-Semitic articles such as the one Miftah published and later apologized for,” UNESCO spokesman Roni Ameland told the Free Beacon over email.

“UNESCO does not fund Miftah nor does it have any formal relations with it,” Ameland said. “UNESCO did support several gender-focused workshops and activities organized by Miftah in the past but its collaboration with the organization ended in 2011.”
UNESCO did not fund Miftah directly, Ameland said. “It just paid for specific contracts concerning specific projects.”
Funding to Miftah has been provided by the governments of Italy, Ireland, and Norway, as well as by handful of Western nonprofits, including the Ford Foundation, according to NGO Monitor, a watchdog group.Hmmmm.......Quite an amazing feat for the Elder of Zion, job well done!Read the full story here.

"CHANGE" - Iran, #1 Worldwide in Executing Children, Elected to UNICEF Leadership.

"CHANGE" - Iran, #1 Worldwide in Executing Children, Elected to UNICEF Leadership.Ht: Scaramouchee.(Camara).According to its Web site, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) “is the driving force that helps build a world where the rights of every child are realized.” On January 23, the organization issued a press release announcing that its Executive Board had elected a five-member leadership Bureau to include the Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran. You read that right.

Iran leads the world in executing child offenders, those convicted of crimes committed when they were under the age of eighteen. Just last month, Iran carried out such an execution. According to a report by Amnesty International:

Article 49 of [Iran’s] Penal Code states: "[M]inors, if committing an offence, are exempted from criminal responsibility. Their correction is the responsibility of their guardians or, if the court decides, by a centre for correction of minors." A minor is defined as "a person who has not reached the age of maturity as stipulated by Islamic jurisprudence". The age of majority in Iran is nine for girls and 15 for boys, implying that children of these ages and above can be sentenced to death. Amnesty International is aware of one girl on death row in Iran for a crime committed when she may have been only 13, and several cases of boys who were 15 at the time of the offence, and one who may have been only 14.Officials from the Iranian Government and the Judiciary have repeatedly stated that Iran does not execute children, even though it is known that some offenders have been executed before they reached the age of 18. However, in most cases the authorities wait until child offenders have turned 18 before executing them.

Well, that’s swell of them. By the way, you may want to amuse yourself by perusing the list of UNICEF Executive Board member states which includes China, of the infamous one-child policy with its attendant high infant abandonment rate, Russia, of the hellish orphanages, and Pakistan, where they pull young girls who want to be educated off buses and shoot them in the head.

Iran’s election was reported by the Iranian news agency FARS, Iranian operation Press TV, and the Tehran Times. Naturally, none of these outlets reported the absurdity of the story. But, neither did the western media because the western press did not report it at all.

Neither is it widely reported that Iran sits on the U.N.’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which, according to its Web site, “is the principal global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women.” Currently, an unmarried woman in Iran cannot leave the country without her father’s permission and a married woman without her husband’s, but the parliament is considering tightening restrictions. Yes, you read that right. That’s gender equality for you. And we aren’t even discussing penalties for women accused of adultery or the prevalence of honor killings.

This is the perverse institution known as the United Nations. At the CSW’s last meeting there was only one country-specific resolution and it condemned – you guessed it – Israel. Iran’s representative used his speech to excoriate – you guessed it - Israel. The previous year, there was also only one country-specific resolution, aimed at – you guessed it, again - Israel.

What is the point of a council on children’s rights that has a place for a country that sentences children as young as nine to death? What is the purpose of a commission on women’s rights that seats a country where women are stoned to death? Where is the recognition of the hypocrisy of the United Nations and the caricature it has become? And, for heaven’s sake… Where’s the Coverage?Read the full story here.

Israel's 'Staunchest Ally' the Obama admin to fund UNESCO?

Israel's 'Staunchest Ally' the Obama admin to fund UNESCO?HT: IsraelMatzav.

When 'Palestine' joined UNESCO, it cost the organization 22% of its funding, or $78 million annually. Claudia Rosett reports that the Obama administration has a plan to re-fund UNESCO.

But Bokova, in her push for the resumption of U.S. funding, has had an improbable ally: the U.S. administration itself. In Paris, President Barack Obama’s ambassador to UNESCO is a former congressional staffer, David Killion, who played a part in bringing the U.S. back into UNESCO nine years ago. Following the UNESCO vote last year to admit the Palestinians, Killion came close to apologizing for the U.S. position. He pledged that the U.S. would keep trying to “find ways to support and strengthen the important work” of UNESCO.
In February, the U.S. State Department released a budget proposal that ignored the defunding of UNESCO required by U.S. law, and proposed $79 million for UNESCO in fiscal year 2013. A footnote, in fine print, informed readers that the State Department “intends to work with Congress to seek legislation that would provide authority to waive restrictions on paying the U.S. assessed contributions to UNESCO.”
Some members of Congress were outraged. Florida representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, released a statement saying she was “deeply disappointed that, rather than standing up for U.S. law and for our key ally, Israel, the Administration is seeking to remove this roadblock to the unilateral recognition of a ‘Palestinian state.’” Ros-Lehtinen added that any attempt to waive the law “will pave the way for the Palestinian leadership’s unilateral statehood scheme to drive on, and sends a disastrous message that the U.S. will fund U.N. bodies no matter what irresponsible decisions they make.”
Enough lawmakers shared her views that it seemed for a while that the administration would not get its wish to reopen the money spigot for UNESCO. Some deterrent is needed to Palestinian opportunism at the U.N., where Obama’s State Department failed last month to stop the General Assembly from voting to upgrade the Palestinian Authority’s status to that of non-member observer state. Former ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton notes that how the U.S. deals with UNESCO could set a vital precedent for how it would treat other U.N. agencies, such as the World Health Organization, were they to admit the Palestinian Authority. “If you waive the prohibition once,” Bolton says, “and waive it for a trivial little organization like UNESCO, the pressure to waive it everywhere else will be overwhelming.”

Meanwhile, in Washington, UNESCO has been busy in the back corridors. ...

All of which might be of no great interest were Papagiannis laboring in Washington to enhance literacy, or perhaps restore cultural artifacts. But there’s a lot of discussion going on among this crowd about how the funding law might be waived. On one of the blogs linked to on the Americans for UNESCO site, there’s a post dated December 1 with the caption “The Process to Change the Law.” It outlines exactly how that might be done — by way of an amendment to a big spending bill: “There will probably not be a specific vote of the Congress on the proposed amendment. Rather it will be included in a larger bill to appropriate funds, that will probably be approved before March, 2013. . . . Lacking strong opposition in the Congress, the waiver will probably be incorporated into the bill.”
Is this credible? I phoned the author of the post, the same John Daly. Daly is an ardent supporter of UNESCO, but unlike Papagiannis he answered my questions. He said he got this information from Peter Yeo, when Yeo spoke at a November 26 panel hosted by Americans for UNESCO at George Washington University. Yeo is a former congressional staffer who now serves as executive director of the Better World Campaign, which is an advocacy arm of Ted Turner’s well-heeled and well-connected U.N. Foundation. In a phone interview this week, Yeo repeated the view that a waiver for UNESCO is likely to go through in “a big omnibus spending bill,” because “this is a strategy that’s been outlined by the president.”
When Yeo shared these thoughts at last month’s Americans for UNESCO panel, he was speaking alongside Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs Esther Brimmer. Both of them were responding to a keynote speech by UNESCO’s George Papagiannis.Hmmmm......Obama: "But I’m also mindful of the proverb, “A man is judged by his deeds, not his words.” So if you want to know where my heart lies, look no further than what I have done — to stand up for Israel."Read the full story here.

Video - Latma 'reports' on the Palestinian heritage sites

HT: IsraelMatzav.

UNESCO reaffirms Jordan as custodian of Jerusalem’s Muslim, Christian sites.

UNESCO reaffirms Jordan as custodian of Jerusalem’s Muslim, Christian sites.(AN).The UNESCO World Heritage Committee, the UN agency’s highest executive body, on Sunday adopted the Jordanian decision regarding Jerusalem and its walls and the decision on the Bab Al Magharbeh pathway. According to a statement by the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, in the decision, issued after a meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, UNESCO “expressed its deep concern over the continuing Israeli excavations in and around the Old City and its walls”. “UNESCO also expressed deep concern regarding Israel not providing the World Heritage Centre with information about these excavations.” “UNESCO also asked Israel to immediately desist from these acts and excavations,” the statement said. “The World Heritage Centre [WHC] asked that in its annual reports, the UNESCO WHC should highlight all the obstacles that Israel places in regard.” According to the statement, the Jordanian decision succeeded in expanding and enhancing the mechanism through which UNESCO can monitor the situation to “include the entirety of the Old City and its walls”. These mechanisms, which were stipulated in previous decisions, were formerly restricted to the Bab Al Magharbeh pathway, which leads into Al Aqsa Mosque. Bab Al Magharbeh Bridge is the largest entrance for non-Muslim visitors into Al Aqsa Mosque complex. “The decision also expressed UNESCO’s regret that Israel refuses to cooperate with WHC and abide by UNESCO’s decisions,” urging Israel “as the occupying force” to facilitate the execution of the WHC decisions, which demand that a joint mission from the WHC and UNESCO’s technical advisory bodies be sent to monitor and inspect the Israeli excavations in and around the Old City and its walls. The Jordanian decision adopted by UNESCO also addressed some of the basic concerns regarding the Bab Al Magharbeh pathway, which is adjacent to Al Haram Al Sharif, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, and leads into it. The organisation expressed its regret that Israel submitted its unilateral plan and design for the bridge before the WHC meetings. The UN body welcomed Jordan’s plans and designs, which were submitted to UNESCO, to reconstruct and maintain the pathway, the statement said. “UNESCO also emphasised the fact that Jordan is the legitimate authority in charge of maintaining and protecting the site, and that the Kingdom is the custodian of the Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem,” according to the statement. The decision also reaffirmed the need for UNESCO to coordinate the next moves on renovating Bab Al Magharbeh Bridge.Under the decision, Israel should not undertake any unilateral actions at the site and alter it in any way, while Jordan must pre-approve any work, action or reconstruction work related to Bab Al Magharbeh pathway, which partially collapsed in 2004 as a result of Israeli action at the site.Read the full story here.