https://www.israpundit.org/
Give Palestinians more rope because they will always hang themselves.
Golda was right. When Palestinians love their children as much as Israelis love theirs then peace may come to the region. (See 1 below.)
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Warren Buffet is not a simple man. He just wears rack clothes to perpetuate his "uncle" image. That said, he does have a great deal of common sense.
The problem is even Buffet cannot overcome lethargy. and POGO. "The Enemy Is Us!" (See 2, 2a and 2b below.)
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Franken had a chance to come clean but he simply ducked like the quack he has proven to be.
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Change is in the air and not always in members of Congress. (See 3 below.)
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Volcano's erupt suddenly but most give some alarm in advance.
"Bimbo" and sexual harassment eruptions seem to occur during sensitive election periods/cycles.
For those who admit they are true no problem. For those accused, then deny and subsequently some of the evidence is proven not to be truthful that is another story.
This is why allowing mass media to shape public opinion can be dangerous and why we have a court system that allows evidence to be examined and the accuser and witnesses to be cross examined while the accused is present.
This is what set America apart from what was normal in other nations at the time our Constitution was debated and eventually written.
As all of this pertains to Roy Moore. I do not know enough to make any kind of valid comment. What I do know is the story has been challenged and some claims are proving to be false.
Alabamans will choose tomorrow.
What is most disconcerting is that most Americans get their news and form their opinions, in large part, from the mass media though, technology and social media is increasingly a source of shaping minds.
A fairly large number read what I write and post and who knows how many more are resent my memos by fellow memo readers. I do not check what I post. I do not even check what I repeat. I am not a reliable source. I simply express my thoughts and say to those who read what I send them - caveat emptor. I try to be upfront and when I am told I am wrong I generally acknowledge but ot always.
This is why I always urge we must do a better job of educating our young because the ignorant increasingly will fall prey to lies and fake news which has become rampant. The mass media has become an entertainment factory not a news reporting one. Far too many of their staff reporters are utterly incompetent, under pressure to report quickly and have no time to fact check and/or are so biased nothing they say is reliable.
You know I am politically schizophrenic because I have told you I am socially liberal, militarily a hawk and fiscally conservative but ruled by my fiscal conservatism and Jewish background. Am I prejudiced? Of course I am. Bit I believe I base my prejudice on facts, on history, on logic and common sense and on repeated results.
This is why I dwell on the failures of liberalism, progressiveness and political correctness which I believe have destroyed so much of our character and values. Is Capitalism flawed? Of Course. Is everything Conservatives propose and believe capable of being challenged? Of course.
I have many who constantly e mail me the other side. Sometimes I find their arguments compelling but most of the time I conclude they are simply defending mistakes and flawed thinking. Am I right? I think I am and they are welcome to believe I am crazy. No problem. At least we are conversing and enjoying the freedom of expression we are guaranteed.
What I rebel at is when expressions of differing views is prevented. This is un -American and dangerous and I find liberals more likely to be guilty than conservatives. Again, this may be challenged and upsetting. So be it.
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The U.N like Palestinians have proven so biased they are not worth funding and/or listening to what they say.
Consequently, they do what is outrageous in order to gain attention in the hope of remaining relevant. Why we continue to throw tax payer money down their toilets is maddening. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1) How’s Your ‘Day of Rage’ Going So Far?
By Jim Geraghty
Today is the Palestinians’ “Day of Rage” over the United States recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, marked by angry mobs, violence, and chants of “We don’t need empty words, we need stones and Kalashnikovs.” The other name for days they do this is “Friday.”
Actually, as of this writing, today is looking more like a “Day of Predictable Usual Anger and Protests.”
By midday Friday there had been no reports of deaths in two days of demonstrations in the Palestinian territories. Thirty-one Palestinians were wounded on Thursday.
Clashes began in some spots of the West Bank after Friday prayers, though the unrest appeared less intense than the previous day. In Hebron and Bethlehem dozens of Palestinians threw stones at Israeli soldiers who fired back with tear gas.
In Gaza, calls for worshippers to protest sounded over mosque loudspeakers and dozens of youths burnt tires on the main streets of the enclave, controlled by the Islamist Hamas group, and hundreds rallied toward the border with Israel.
Look, pal, all you’re doing is leaving a terrible burnt rubber smell in your own neighborhood. (Somebody out there probably could have used those tires.) Israel doesn’t care. The current U.S. administration doesn’t care. Your anger isn’t really changing anything.
Do you know who is going to get hurt by this violence? All the businesses in a little town of Bethlehem.
IDF General Yoav Mordechai the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories issued a statement on Facebook calling on the Palestinian public to lower tensions in the West Bank.
“Extremists are trying to incite the public by spreading lies that this is a religious war. In the end violence will only hurt the Palestinian people,” he wrote. “I beseech you. do not let the extremists ruin the Christmas season, by scaring off the tourists, without whom a period of positive blossoming, will go down the drain.”
This is a choice on the part of the Palestinians, one of many bad ones they’ve made, time after time. Back in the 1990s, they had President Bill Clinton desperate to reach a deal, and Yassir Arafat walked away from the table and the best offer his people were probably ever going to get. Barack Obama was about as tough on the Israelis as any American president is ever going to be, and the Palestinians still didn’t show any real effort to reach a deal. They need to learn, the hard way, that good opportunities don’t keep coming back over and over again.
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2)Warren Buffett is asking everyone to forward this email to a minimum of 20 people, and to ask each of those to do likewise.
The BUFFETT Rule:Let's see if these idiots understand what people pressure is all about.Salary of retired US Presidents .. . . . .. . . . . .. . $180,000 FOR LIFE.Salary of House/Senate members .. . . . .. . . . $174,000 FOR LIFE.Salary of Speaker of the House .. . . . .. . . . . $223,500 FOR LIFE.Salary of Majority / Minority Leaders . . .. . . . . $193,400 FOR LIFE.Average Salary of a teacher . . .. . . . .. . . . . .. . $40,065Average Salary of a deployed Soldier . . .. . . .. $38,000
Here’s where the cuts should be made!Warren Buffett, in a recent interview with CNBC, offers one of the best quotes about the debt ceiling:"I could end the deficit in five minutes," he told CNBC. "You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election".
The 26th Amendment ( granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds ) took only three months and eight days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971 - before computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc.
Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took one (1) year or less to become the law of the land - all because of public pressure.
Warren Buffett is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.
In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.Congressional Reform Act of 2017
1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman / woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they're out of office.2. Congress (past, present, & future) participates in Social Security.All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void effective 3/1/17. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women.
Congress made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and go back to work.THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!
2a)
Today's Opinion
We will never see this again
It's one you want your children and grandchildren to read.
They won't believe this happened, but it did.
Harry & Bess
Harry S. Truman was a different kind of President. He probably made as many, or more important decisions regarding our nation's history as any of the other 42 Presidents preceding him. However, a measure of his greatness may rest on what he did after he left the White House.
The only asset he had when he died was the house he lived in, which was in Independence Missouri. His wife had inherited the house from her mother and father and other than their years in the White House, they lived their entire lives there.
When he retired from office in 1952 his income was a U.S. Army pension reported to have been $13,507.72 a year. Congress, noting that he was paying for his stamps and personally licking them, granted him an 'allowance' and, later, a retroactive pension of $25,000 per year.
After President Eisenhower was inaugurated, Harry and Bess drove home to Missouri by themselves. There was no Secret Service following them.
When offered corporate positions at large salaries, he declined, stating, "You don't want me. You want the office of the President, and that doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it's not for sale."
Even later, on May 6, 1971, when Congress was preparing to award him the Medal of Honor on his 87th birthday, he refused to accept it, writing, "I don't consider that I have done anything which should be the reason for any award, Congressional or otherwise."
As president he paid for all of his own travel expenses and food.
Modern politicians have found a new level of success in cashing in on the Presidency, resulting in untold wealth. Today, many in Congress also have found a way to become quite wealthy while enjoying the fruits of their offices. Political offices are now for sale.
Good old Harry Truman was correct when he observed, "My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!
2b) The Takeaway: For Millennials, Hope Doesn't Spring Eternal
By Tom Bevan
Intriguing tidbits from the week in election surveys and public opinion polls:
Millennials Have Identified the Threat: Turns out it’s us. The Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics released the 34th edition of its survey “Young Americans’ Attitudes Toward Politics and Public Service” this week. Among the key findings: 67 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds are fearful about the future of America. Forty-four percent say the idea of the American dream is dead to them. Only 29 percent agree that America is “the last, best hope of man on earth,” while 29 percent disagree.
When asked “What is the greatest threat to America today?” 16 percent cited ISIS, followed by President Trump (12 percent), ourselves/ignorance (9 percent), racism (5 percent), lack of civility (5 percent), politics/government (5 percent) and North Korea/Nuclear War/War (4 percent).
Two Parties, Two Americas: Many of the responses in the new CBS News poll on the GOP tax plan are predictable: Republicans like it, Independents are split roughly 50/50, and Democrats really hate it. Some 94 percent of Democrats say the plan only favors the rich and 86 percent say they will be “disappointed” or “angry” if it passes.
The most significant finding, which also divides along party lines, will form the basis of the political battles of 2018 and 2020. CBS asked for a response to this choice: “In today’s economy, does everyone have a fair chance to get ahead” or is it “mainly just a few people at the top who have a chance to get ahead”? Seventy-seven percent of Republicans answered that “everyone has a fair chance,” while 76 percent of Democrats responded that “just a few at the top get ahead.” Independents were split, with 41 percent saying “everyone” and 55 percent saying “just a few.”
On Harassment, Congress Brings Up the Rear: The new Quinnipiac poll judging public attitudes on sexual harassment was completed before Al Franken bid adieu to the Senate on Thursday, but it’s clear yet again that people hold our elected officials in Washington, D.C., in low esteem. Just 21 percent approve of the way the GOP is handling the issue of sexual assault in politics, while Democrats fare just a slightly better at 28 percent. That’s 10 points lower than the public’s approval of the entertainment industry’s handling of the issue, and 20 points below approval of the media.
By the way, Donald Trump gets just 22 percent approval for his handling of the issue, and a whopping 77 percent (including 66 percent of Republicans) say it’s hypocritical of Trump to criticize other men on Twitter who’ve been accused of sexual harassment given that he’s also faced accusations of sexual misconduct. Worse for the White House, 70 percent (again including 66 percent of Republicans) think Congress should investigate accusations of sexual harassment against the president.
Alabama Still Tight: There’s not much left to be said about the Senate special election taking place next Tuesday. Two polls out this week offer no clues to the outcome: One showed Republican Roy Moore leading by seven points, the other showed Democrat Doug Jones ahead by four. Overall, Moore leads in the RCP Average by 2.3 percentage points. It’s time to fall back on the old saw that “the only poll that matters is the one they take on Election Day.”
Rigged, This Poll Is: A week before the release of the much-anticipated new “Star Wars” movie, Morning Consult is out with a survey of 2,200 adults showing that -- surprise! -- the classic characters in the series beat out the ones from the most recent film, 2015’s “The Force Awakens.” On one hand, it makes complete sense that Princess Leia, Luke, Chewy, Yoda, R2-D2, Han Solo and C3PO would receive the highest favorable ratings. Then again, it’s highly suspicious that Finn, BB-8, and Rey all have lower favorable ratings than Jabba the Hutt. As Jabba himself would say, “Bring me Solo and the Wookiee. They will all suffer for this outrage!”
Tom Bevan is the Co-Founder & Publisher of RealClearPolitics and the co-author of Election 2012: A Time for Choosing. Email: tom@realclearpolitics.com,
3)An interesting talk by the Head of Daimler Benz. A bit mind-blowing to say the least! He predicted an interesting concept of what could lay ahead.
In a recent interview, the Head of Daimler Benz (Mercedes Benz) said its competitors are no longer other car companies, but Tesla (obviously), and now, Google, Apple, Amazon et al.
Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.
Uber is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world.
Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although it does not own any properties.
Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected.
In the U.S., young lawyers already can't get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more-or-less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans.
So, if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% fewer lawyers in the future; only specialists will remain.
Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, four times more accurate than human nurses. Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. By 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.
Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don't want to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and you can be productive while driving. Our kids will never get a driver's license and will never own a car.
It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% fewer cars for that. We can transform former parking spaces into parks.
1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 60,000 miles (100,000 km), with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 6 million miles (10 million km). That will save a million lives each year.
Most car companies will probably go bankrupt. Traditional car companies will try the traditional approach and try to build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will take the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels.
Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi are completely terrified of Tesla.
Auto Insurance companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, car insurance will become much cheaper. The car insurance business model will slowly disappear.
Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move farther away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood.
Electric cars will become mainstream about 2020. Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run on electricity. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, and now you can now see the burgeoning impact.
Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. Energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that can't last. Technology will take care of that strategy.
With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination of salt water now only needs 2kwh per cubic meter (@ 0.25 cents). We don't have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost.
Health innovations: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There are companies who will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample, and you can breathe into it.
It then analyzes 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world-class medical analysis, almost for free. Goodbye, medical establishment.
3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies have already started 3D printing shoes.
Some common spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to keep in the past.
At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoes at home.
In China, they already 3D printed and built a complete 6-story office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that's being produced will be 3D printed.
Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, ask yourself: "In the future, do you think we will have that?" If the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner?
If it doesn't work with your phone, forget the idea. And any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to failure in the 21st century.
Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time.
Agriculture: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in third-world countries can then become managers of their field instead of working all day on their fields.
Aeroponics will need much less water. The first Petri dish that produced veal is now available and will be cheaper than cow-produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows. Imagine if we don't need that space anymore.
There are several startups that will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labeled as "alternative protein source" (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).
There is an app called "moodies" that can already tell in which mood you're in. By 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions, if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where it's being displayed when the truth is being told.
Bitcoin may even become the default reserve currency .. Of the world!
Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it's 80. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more than one year increase per year. So, we all might live for a long time, probably way more than 100.
Education: The cheapest smart phones are already at $10 in Africa and Asia. By 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smart phone. That means, everyone has the same access to world-class education.
Every child can use Khan academy for everything a child needs to learn at school in First World countries. There have already been releases of software in Indonesia and soon there will be releases in Arabic, Swahili, and Chinese this summer. I can see enormous potential if we give the English app for free, so that children in Africa and everywhere else can become fluent in English. And that could happen within half a year.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Are we ready for all this?
4)
Islamist Regimes Take Over UNESCO
- The UN agency is currently dominated by the most oppressive regimes on education and culture. There is China, which recently let writer, poet and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo die an agonizing death in prison, where he was serving an 11-year jail sentence for his support of human rights and democracy. Then there is Iran, where a dean of journalism, Siamak Pourzand, committed suicide to avoid more persecution by the regime.
- “UNESCO has been hijacked and abused as a tool for the persecution of Israel and the Jewish people, while concocting fake facts and fake history, meant to… rewrite global history.” — Carmel Shama Hacohen, Israel's ambassador to UNESCO.
- If UNESCO is really serious about reforming itself, it should immediately issue a statement against the Islamization of Turkey's Hagia Sophia Cathedral, a UN World Heritage Site.
Hit by the departure of the United States and Israel, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recently welcomed its new Director-General, former French Minister of Culture Audrey Azoulay. Those who care about cultural diversity and Western civilization hailed her election, because the representative of Qatar's Islamist regime had come close to winning UNESCO's leadership race. But the real problem is that UNESCO has been abandoned to Islamist dictatorships. A battle to save the organization has begun.
Among the critics of UNESCO there is a tendency to dismiss this agency as “irrelevant“. Yet, so long as UNESCO exists, the West cannot allow repressive regimes to dominate the world's highest body supposedly in charge of culture, science and education. Richard Hoggart, the British scholar who served as UNESCO's assistant director general from 1970 to 1977, once asked: “Should Unesco Survive?“.
Last week, the assistant director for Education of UNESCO, Qian Tang, was in Iran to advance “cultural cooperation” with the Islamic Republic, but the issue of cultural freedom in the Iran was not even raised by the envoy of the UN agency. There is also Pakistan, a country that has sentenced to death essentially for being a Christian mother of five, Asia Bibi, whose condition has never even been questioned by UNESCO. There is Qatar, where a poet, Rashid at Ajami, was sentenced to three years in prison for a poem critical of the emir Hamad bin Khalifa at Thani.
UNESCO has become a grotesque forum, hosting shows such as that orchestrated by Cuba. Last June, Cuba complained of a minute of silence for Holocaust victims, but was able to hold another one for the Palestinians. At the opening of UNESCO's 39th General Conference in Paris, the United Arab Emirates' delegation placed a box containing a medal on the desk of each foreign delegation in honor of the UAE having sponsored the renovation of the conference hall. No box, however, was placed on the desk of Israel's ambassador to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen. These farces are nothing new at UNESCO. And they must end. The UN agency cannot allow the “uncivilized regimes“, as Shama-Hacohen called them, to continue to bully and vandalize Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.
Islamic regimes launched a takeover bid for UNESCO by investing massive financial resources and political lobbying at the UN cultural agency. Qatar, the wealthiest state in the world per capita, provided extremely generous financial support. That is why a Qatari representative, the former Minister of Culture Hamad bin Abdulaziz al Kawari, for days led the recent race for the leadership of UNESCO. The Simon Wiesenthal Center charged Qatar with bribing countries to win votes for the UN agency post. The Wiesenthal Center then launched an appeal to prevent Iran from becoming the head of UNESCO's executive board. Meanwhile, Turkey, another country with an Islamist regime that bullies culture and freedom, joined the executive board.
This “lobbying” has enabled those Islamic countries to form the most powerful bloc at UNESCO. As Denis MacEoin has previously explained:
“Of UNESCO's 195 member states, 35 are fully Islamic nations, another 21 are members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and four are OIC observer states. That makes 60 who represent a bloc favourable to Muslim-inspired resolutions.”
Qatar has been pivotal in sponsoring anti-Semitic resolutions. There was UNESCO's resolution denying Jewish history in Jerusalem, Islamizing historically Biblical holy sites by magic wand legerdemain, as Islam did not even exist until 600 years later. In a speech to the UNESCO General Assembly last week, Israel's ambassador to UNESCO Carmel Shama Hacohen said :
“UNESCO has been hijacked and abused as a tool for the persecution of Israel and the Jewish people, while concocting fake facts and fake history, meant to erase our history in Jerusalem and rewrite global history.”
The Islamists' takeover of the agency does not affect only Israel. It undermines the universal noble goal of this UN agency, which should be the protection of cultural diversity, especially where it is endangered.
The Preamble of UNESCO's Constitution says: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed”. UNESCO is knowingly betraying its own message. It is allowing regimes that massacre the minds of men to take over the UN agency that claims to be precisely in charge of “defenses of peace”.
Last March, UNESCO's then Director-General, Irina Bokova, expressed appreciation for Qatar's support with a $2 million loan as part of a commitment by the Qatari authorities to donate $10 million to UNESCO. UNESCO's headquarter in Paris hosted a forum sponsored by Saudi Arabia on “cultural and religious diversity“. It was a capitulation to barbarism; Saudi Arabia tortures bloggers such as Raif Badawi, sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison. UNESCO also held a three-day event entitled “Saudi Cultural Days” with Saudi art, food, customs and dances. Saudi King Abdallah Ibn Abdul Aziz donated $20 million to the UNESCO Emergency Fund. Donations to UNESCO have been promised by other Islamic countries, such as Algeria, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Qatar and Turkey.
The United Arab Emirates gave $6 million to UNESCO, while Kuwait gave $5 million. UNESCO now hosts the presentation of books such as The Foundations of Islam along with ISESCO, the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, whose director Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijri met Flavia Schlegel, assistant director general of UNESCO, to advance the cooperation between the two agencies.
At its headquarters in Paris, UNESCO also promoted a project, “Fighting Islamophobia through Education“. As the French author Pascal Bruckner explained:
“The concept of Islamophobia masks the reality of the offensive, led by the Salafists, Wahhabis, and Muslim Brotherhood in Europe and North America, to re-Islamize Muslim communities — a prelude, they hope, to Islamizing the entire Western world.”
Under UNESCO's previous Director-General Irina Bokova, the organization allowed the “State of Palestine” to join as a member, despite its not being a state and despite the Palestinians' clear failure to protect holy sites. Palestinians destroyed the Jewish holy shrine of Joseph's Tomb and attacked the holy site known as Rachel's Tomb, while Palestinian terrorists invaded the Christian holy site of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity. UNESCO also kept silent when Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist terror group governing Gaza, destroyed the ancient Anthedon Harbor, which includes the ruins of a Roman temple and archaeological remains from the Persian, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine eras.
UNESCO's concern for “endangered sites” — a travesty of language used by these regimes to mask the Islamization of Hebron's Jewish cemeteries at the UN — quickly disappears when it comes to Christian churches in the Islamic world. Hagia Sophia, the great cathedral of Christianity in Istanbul, was re-Islamized by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The muezzin's call to prayer resounded for the first time in 85 years since the country's former leader, Ataturk, turned the cathedral into a museum. If UNESCO is really serious about reforming itself, it should immediately issue a statement against the Islamization of Hagia Sophia, a UN World Heritage Site.
Novelist and filmmaker Zulfu Livaneli, Turkey's goodwill ambassador to the UNESCO, resigned in 2016; he accused the UN agency of hypocrisy for ignoring the destruction of a heritage site in Diyarbakir during clashes between the Turkish army and militants in his country's mainly Kurdish southeast. “To pontificate on peace while remaining silent against such violations is a contradiction of the fundamental ideals of UNESCO,” said Livaneli, who had held the goodwill post to promote UNESCO values since 1996. More officials and personalities should take the same position protesting against UNESCO's silence on many other destructions.
New UNESCO chief Azoulay said last week that the US “empty chair” cannot last. The American boycott, however, is not a matter of time, but of substance. The US and Israeli boycott will last until UNESCO returns to its original mission.
When Pablo Picasso painted the famous frescoes at UNESCO's headquarter at Place de Fontenoy in Paris, UNESCO's founding fathers dreamed of the rebirth of Western culture after the horrors of the Holocaust and Nazism. Now the West, intimidated by physical terror and political ransom, is allowing UNESCO to be seized by regimes that hang dissidents, lash women, execute gays, imprison Christians and leave their own people illiterate.
When did the West cynically decide that education and culture were worth less than a barrel of oil?
Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.
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