What a surprise.
A UN exhibit created as a joint venture between the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization—UNESCO—and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the People, Book, Land – The 3,500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People and the Land of Israel, and scheduled to open Monday, has been canceled, and cynically so: it was done at the last minute, leaving little time for the Center to respond.
Why? The Arab League claimed the exhibit “could create potential obstacles related to the peace process in the Middle East.” Never mind that the obstacle to peace there has been Palestinian terrorist refusal to take peace negotiations seriously (and President Barack Obama’s insistence on acquiescing to Palestinian demands while not supporting our ally in the slightest, but that’s another story). Never mind that the PLO (under the rubric “Palestine”) is a member in good standing of UNESCO and in that capacity had review and input into this exhibit as it was being developed and scheduled.
Never mind the extortionate threat the Arab League’s…objection…represents. Chairperson of Group V(b) (Arab States), Abdulla al Neaimi of the UAE, proclaimed in a letter to the UNESCO MFWIC, Irina Bokova,
The subject of this exhibition is highly political though the appearance of the title seems to be trivial. Most serious is the defense of this theme which is one of the reasons used by the opponents of peace within Israel. The publicity that will accompany…the exhibit can only cause damage to the peace negotiations presently occurring, and the constant effort of Secretary of State John Kerry, and the neutrality and objectivity of UNESCO.
For all these reasons, for the major worry not to damage UNESCO in its…mission of support for peace, the Arab group within UNESCO is asking you to make the decision to cancel this exhibition.
This is nothing more—or less—than anti-Israeli, anti-Jewish bigotry by the Arab League and the timid acquiescence to it by UNESCO (and by the Obama administration, which meekly accepted Neami’s charges and Bokova’s agreement with them).
It’s time we cut off funding to the UN until the UN goes back to its founding principles. We have other uses for our money in an era of enormous deficits and runaway national debt.