{Cross-posted at Jews Down Under.}
Those of you who follow the Jewish press and pro-Israel blogosphere are probably aware that UNESCO has cancelled a long anticipated exhibit created by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and co-sponsored by Israel, Canada and (strangely enough) Montenegro, to have been titled, People, Book, Land – The 3,500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People and the Land of Israel.I have not written on this story until now for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that people like Dovid Efune of The Algemeiner and the FresnoZionist already seem to have this story well in hand. I am sure that the Elder of Ziyon and others have also put out material concerning this.
The long and short of it is that the Arab League complained to UNESCO that an exhibit highlighting the long history of the Jewish people on Jewish land is inconsistent with the "peace process."
As Efune writes:
UNESCO informed the SWC of the change on January 14th in a letter to the Center’s Shimon Samuels, asserting the Arab League’s claim that going ahead with the show “could create potential obstacles related to the peace process in the Middle East.”As both Efune and FresnoZionist point out, the Obama administration agrees with the Arab League that Jewish history is an obstacle to peace and therefore must be suppressed:
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 co-sponsor the current exhibit during its display at UNESCO headquarters,” wrote Kelly O. Siekman, Director at the Office of UNESCO Affairs of the State Department, in an email seen by The Algemeiner.Review at the highest levels, huh?
The reason that I am writing this piece is because the theft of Jewish history by the Palestinian-Arabs is an ongoing tactic for the purpose of severing the link between the Jewish people and our homeland. It is not surprising that the Arabs would do this because the Palestinian-Arab national movement requires the erasure, or submission, of the Jewish people on Jewish land.
What is new is that the US government, under president Barack Obama, is now involved in the process of the delegitimization of Jewish history. Many of us have been warning for a long time now that the current US administration is essentially hostile to the Jewish State of Israel and clearly favors Islamist regimes such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the theocracy in Iran. Although Obama sycophants of various stripes will simply deny the undeniable, it remains the case that Obama supported the Muslim Brotherhood bid for power in Egypt, supported the misnamed "Arab Spring" which was actually the rise of political Islam throughout the region, and is now enabling the soon to come Iranian Sharia Bomb.
The UNESCO story is, of course, merely anecdotal.
It is just one more sad tidbit of Obama administration misbehavior that points to the larger pattern of hostility; a pattern that seems to be invisible to far too many Jewish people in the United States or which they misinterpret as "tough love," as if kicking the Jews in the head is meant as an expression of concern and affection.
As we see in the graphic above New York Magazine dubbed Barack Obama "The First Jewish President" in September of 2011. If part of being Jewish means siding with the enemies of the Jewish people on alleged moral and ethical grounds then perhaps New York Magazine makes a good point.
Barack Obama spit his Jewish constituency in the face and they love him for it.
What could be more Jewish than that?
Update:
Y-Net is reporting that after negotiations with the Simon Wiesenthal Center the exhibit is to be delayed six months, but not cancelled.
Score one for the good guys!
ReplyDeleteSometimes the bigotry is so rank, so blatant and raw, that, under pressure, even the bigots must relent.
Time to keep up the pressure to expose and shame the bigots that abuse the UN to promote and hide their bigotry.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/unesco-exhibit-on-jewish-ties-to-israel-rescheduled-for-june/?fb_action_ids=1392910384301645&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582
I read your comment right after I made my update.
DeleteGood for the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
I"n an interview with The New Yorker magazine, Obama described the Muslim hatred of Israel as byproduct of recent fights, not as a consequence of Islam’s doctrinal objection to any Jewish government."
ReplyDeleteheh
http://dailycaller.com/2014/01/21/muslim-anti-semitism-is-only-decades-old-obama-claims/
This is the paragraph in question from the New Yorker piece:
Delete“With respect to Israel, the interests of Israel in stability and security are actually very closely aligned with the interests of the Sunni states.” As Saudi and Israeli diplomats berate Obama in unison, his reaction is, essentially, Use that. “What’s preventing them from entering into even an informal alliance with at least normalized diplomatic relations is not that their interests are profoundly in conflict but the Palestinian issue, as well as a long history of anti-Semitism that’s developed over the course of decades there, and anti-Arab sentiment that’s increased inside of Israel based on seeing buses being blown up,” Obama said. “If you can start unwinding some of that, that creates a new equilibrium. And so I think each individual piece of the puzzle is meant to paint a picture in which conflicts and competition still exist in the region but that it is contained, it is expressed in ways that don’t exact such an enormous toll on the countries involved, and that allow us to work with functioning states to prevent extremists from emerging there.”
I have to say, Doodad, you know very well what I think of Obama when it comes to the Jews and the Jewish state, but I cannot hang him for this one. Certainly, I wanted to. But, sadly, I cannot.
It comes down to a single word, "decades."
If he had said "centuries" then he would have demonstrated some small understanding of the history of the Jewish people under Arab-Muslim rule.
But I think that we have already established that Barack Obama has very little understanding of what he is doing as he blunders around the Middle East.
That single word sums it all up, actually. Your last two paragraphs pretty much hit it spot-on, as I see it.
DeleteI do not believe the president has any nefarious intentions when it comes to Israel, it's just that they're operating on wildly incorrect assumptions and understandings of history, and therefore, pardon my language, bumbling around like fucking idiots as a result.
They seem to be at the same stage of enlightenment in this conflict as bloodletters were to medicine.
But that can't be, Mike! I hear tell a good number of such folks are 'anti-imperialist'... ;)
Delete(Yes, there is simply no other way to correctly describe the aims and practices of Islamists throughout the region over the past 13 centuries; it is quite simply one of the world's oldest, and most racist and bigoted, imperialist movements in history)
*but they don't look like your average CEO, so they get a pass...
Delete