Trump Dumps the UN Erasure, Slander, and Cover-up Organization
By A.J. Caschetta
The Washington Examiner
October 12, 2017
The Trump administration
announced Thursday that it plans to withdraw from the UN Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) because of the agency's "anti-Israel
bias." That's putting it mildly.
You'd think an institution with the motto "building peace in
the minds of men and women" couldn't help but be a positive influence in
the Middle East. Leave it to a UN agency to figure out how to parlay that
mandate into an assault on Jews. UNESCO has become the tip
of the spear in the UN's
assault on Israel and earned a more appropriate backronym: the UN
Erasure, Slander, and Cover-up Organization.
"E" is for UNESCO's efforts in recent years to erase
Jewish history in the Holy Land. It does this by ignoring the original
millennia-old Hebrew names of locations in Israel and using their much-newer
Arabic names. UNESCO refers to the Temple Mount (Solomon's Temple) as "Haram
al-Sharif" and the Western Wall as the Al-Buraq Plaza ("Buraq"
being the mythical flying horse with a woman's head that Islamic tradition says
took Mohammed up to heaven for a visit). This phenomenon has become known as temple
denial.
UNESCO seeks to erase Jewish history in the Holy Land. |
In what Miriam
Elman calls "a bid to usurp Jewish history," statements by
UNESCO's World Heritage Committee have also denied Jewish historical links to
the Cave
of the Machpelah and its Tomb of the Patriarchs (Jewish
patriarchs, that is) in the Old City of Hebron (which UNESCO calls "Al
Khalil"). On July 7, UNESCO erased Judaism from both the Old City and the
tomb, declaring them parts of "Palestine."
Showing an awareness that the public is increasingly onto his
agency's delegitimation of Israel, UNESCO Director of Public lnformation Neil
Ford insists
unconvincingly that it is "not trying to replace Israeli
heritage with Palestinian heritage."
"S" stands for UNESCO's campaign of slander against
Israel. It slanders Israel by including ancient Jewish historical sites safely
under Israeli control on its list of "Endangered World Heritage
Sites," while portraying its legitimate
care and maintenance of sites sacred both to Jews and Muslims as attempts to
destroy Islamic heritage. In April 2016, UNESCO accused Israel of planting
"fake Jewish graves" in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Hebron. In 2012, it approved
a request
by the Palestinian Authority to list the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem as
an endangered World Heritage Site because of ostensible Israeli
threats.
UNESCO has accused Israeli archeologists and maintenance
workers (without evidence) of planting "fake Jewish graves" in
Jerusalem. |
Furthermore, UNESCO slanders Israel as an occupier of Palestinian
territory – territory that includes Israel's capital, Jerusalem, as well as
the ancient Jewish kingdoms of Judea and Samaria. One infamous 2016 UNESCO
Executive Board decision,
titled "Occupied Palestine," contains 13 repetitions of the phrase
"Israel, the occupying power."
"C" is for "cover-up." UNESCO pointedly
ignores Palestinian actions threatening Jewish and Christian historical sites
not under Israeli control. Joseph's
Tomb in Nablus was torched by Palestinians in 2000 and again in 2015.
Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem has been the target of numerous Palestinian attacks, including
fire in September 1996, bombings on April 10, 2005, and December 27, 2006. In
2010, UNESCO declared
Rachel's Tomb was really the Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque.
In 2002, Palestinian terrorists seized
the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and held the monastic keepers of the
site hostage for 39 days, firing guns at Israeli soldiers whom they knew
respected the ancient church too much to attempt storming it. The terrorists
treated the site sacred to Christians as though it were a PLO latrine and,
according to one Greek Orthodox priest, even used Bibles
as toilet paper. When they finally negotiated their withdrawal, they stole
sacred artifacts and left behind bombs, rigged to explode when
disturbed.
UNESCO ignores Palestinian attacks and threats
against Jewish and Christian sites. |
Another dimension of UNESCO's cover-up role is its legitimation
of questionable Palestinian institutions. In 2012, UNESCO endowed a chair in
astronomy, astrophysics, and space sciences at the Islamic University in Gaza,
also known as Hamas
U. According to the Israeli
foreign ministry, Hamas uses the university as "a warehouse for
weapons and a venue for secret meetings of military leaders" and employs
its laboratories "to develop and produce explosives and rockets."
Shortly after UNESCO recognized "Palestine" in 2011,
the Obama administration cut its funding, prompting complaints
from Director General Irina Bokova that the loss of revenue had left UNESCO
crippled. But evidently not crippled enough to move past its obsession with
erasing Judaism, slandering Israel, and covering up Palestinian crimes. According
to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the front-runner in UNESCO's election
for Bokova's replacement, Qatar's former Culture Minister Hamad bin Abdulaziz
al-Kawari, "has repeatedly endorsed anti-Semitic works and denied a Jewish
connection to Jerusalem." He'll fit right in.
The United States has spent years trying to reform UNESCO from
within as its co-creator and chief donor. Having correctly concluded that those
efforts have run their course and having withdrawn the U.S. completely from
UNESCO, President Trump should now focus his powers of persuasion on encouraging
U.S. allies around the world to do likewise.