Commentary Magazine

Topic: UNESCO

Defund UNESCO

04.12.2013 - 4:30 PM

President Obama breathed new life into the credibility of the UN Human Rights Council when he reversed the Bush administration’s boycott of the body. He similarly spearheaded a drive to restore U.S. funding to UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

The idea that either the Council or UNESCO has credibility or deserves U.S. support has increasingly become risible. The Council has certainly embarrassed itself over the past several years, with members like Cuba, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia taking seats. Perhaps greater things could be expected from UNESCO, however. Alas, the sickness which runs through the United Nations is widespread. At a meeting in Paris earlier this week, UNESCO allowed Syria to preside as a judge over its human rights committee. This is the same Syrian government that has both masterminded the mass murder of tens of thousands of civilians and allegedly deployed chemical weapons against civilians. Nothing better symbolizes the judgment and moral bankruptcy of the United Nations than such a session.

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Islamists Calling for Pyramids’ Destruction?

07.11.2012 - 10:01 AM

According to Raymond Ibrahim, calls are starting among a more radical fringe of Islamists to destroy the Pyramids:

According to several reports in the Arabic media, prominent Muslim clerics have begun to call for the demolition of Egypt’s Great Pyramids—or, in the words of Saudi Sheikh Ali bin Said al-Rabi’i, those “symbols of paganism,” which Egypt’s Salafi party has long planned to cover with wax. Most recently, Bahrain’s “Sheikh of Sunni Sheikhs” and President of National Unity, Abd al-Latif al-Mahmoud, called on Egypt’s new president, Muhammad Morsi, to “destroy the Pyramids and accomplish what [Muslim conqueror of Egypt] Amr bin al-As could not.”

The calls to destroy the Pyramids are certainly fringe, and do not represent the vast majority of the Egyptian public or the Egyptian leadership, even amongst the Muslim Brotherhood. Still, that such a fringe and wacky idea gains any voice in Arabic media or on Islamist websites should be cause for concern, given precedent.

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Preserve Bethlehem’s Christians as Well as the Church of the Nativity

07.03.2012 - 2:00 PM

Last week’s decision by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to designate the Church of the Nativity as a world heritage site was rightly opposed by the United States because it was seen as merely a ploy to boost the Palestinian Authority’s bid for statehood. UNESCO was the only UN agency to recognize the PA as an independent state, and this announcement was merely a jab at Israel as part of a campaign to falsely claim the Jewish state is endangering the future of the shrine as well as the Christian population in the West Bank.

But if UNESCO and those who applauded the decision were truly interested in the well-being of Palestinian Christians, they would have recognized that not only has the PA been the one desecrating the Church of the Nativity, but it has been assisting the efforts to transform Bethlehem from a traditional stronghold of Christianity into one where Christians no longer have a future.

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Heritage Site is Jewish, Not Just Palestinian

06.27.2012 - 5:46 PM

On Monday, the New York Times reported about the effort by Palestinians to have the village of Battir designated as a World Heritage site because of the unique ecological nature of the ancient terraced irrigation system at work there. The terraces might be endangered by the construction of Israel’s security fence that in the area runs right along the 1949 armistice lines. While it is not clear that the barrier would actually damage the area, ironically the greatest obstacle to the designation of the site by UNESCO is that the Palestinians are also seeking to get the same honor for the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

But as bloggers Elli Fischer and Yisrael Medad have pointed out, the problem with the article isn’t so much its acceptance of the Palestinian argument against putting the fence there (which is also ironic because Israel’s critics have objected when the barrier was placed anywhere but at the old green line), but that it completely ignored the Jewish heritage of the area. Battir is not just a Palestinian village with an old irrigation system but was the site of the ancient Jewish fortress of Betar, the site of the last organized resistance to Roman rule in 135 C.E. during the Bar Kochba revolt. Moreover, far from the irrigation system being, as the Times claimed, a remnant of the Roman presence, it predates their presence in the country and is clearly the product of biblical-era Jewish settlement. As Medad put it, “Romans, Shmomans.”

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Does the EU Support Suicide Bombing?

06.11.2012 - 9:50 AM

Itamar Marcus and the folks at Palestinian Media Watch do what every single diplomat and foreign ministry engaging or funding the Palestinian Authority (PA) should: Watch Palestinian television to see what the PA is saying. Today, they release two shockers.

First, this, showing what European Union cash sponsors:

PA TV program for youth, Speak Up, glorified the 91 terrorists saying they were: “More honored than all of us… They are the greatest role models for us.” The TV program is co-produced by PA TV and PYALARA, an NGO for youth funded by the EU, Save the Children and other international donors.

Of course, the United Nations is not far behind:

A Palestinian NGO, the Burj Luq-Luq Social Center Society organization, performed a puppet show for children in East Jerusalem to promote non-smoking. The educational message delivered by the puppets instructed children to replace cigarettes with machine guns:

Puppet: “I, and many other youth like me, think that cigarettes will help us to grow, to turn into men. Jerusalem doesn’t need men who hold cigarettes. It needs men who hold machine guns, not cigarettes.”

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Obama’s Push to Fund UNESCO is No Joke

04.01.2012 - 11:33 AM

Even amidst the flurry of overt philo-Semitism that is the hallmark of President Obama’s election year Jewish charm offensive, some remnants of his less appealing foreign policy stands persist. One such anomaly is the administration campaign to restore American funding to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). U.S. law required Obama to cut off UNESCO after it admitted the Palestinian Authority as a full voting member of the group as part of the Arab effort to make an end run around the Middle East peace process. The Palestinian push for recognition of their independence without first making peace with Israel fizzled, but the president’s ardent love for the UN and its constituent agencies made him regret the fact that he was obligated to punish UNESCO.

There is little chance that Congress will amend the law so as to allow the flow of U.S. taxpayer cash to resume. But those supporting such a move got a boost recently when Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” did a segment intended to spoof the cutoff. The satire complimented UNESCO’s own efforts to persuade Americans that they are a collection of non-political do-gooders whose efforts are being hampered. But as Claudia Rosett writes in an important piece in The Weekly Standard, the truth about UNESCO is a familiar story for those who follow the world of international non-governmental organizations. The corruption of the agency and, in particular, its efforts in the African nation of Gabon (which was the focus of “The Daily Show’s” skits), serves as a warning of how the world body wastes American money intended for charitable purposes.

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