UNESCO files complaint against Israeli delegation over Haaretz cartoon

I wonder if UNESCO called in the Afghan prime minister when he incited a riot in Afghanistan that caused the actual death of UN employees there as well as the torching of the UN building in Kabul.

From Haaretz:

A cartoon published in Haaretz causes a rift between Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

By Barak Ravid Tags: Ramallah Palestinians UNESCO Haaretz

Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when a senior official at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization called him in for a tongue-lashing on Wednesday. The reason? A cartoon published in Haaretz.

The November 4 cartoon, a riff on the government’s anger at UNESCO’s decision to accept Palestine as a full member, showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak sending an air force squadron to attack Iran, with Netanyahu ordering, “And on your way back, you’re gonna hit the UNESCO office in Ramallah!”

Cartoon - Eran Wolkovsky The editorial cartoon in question.
Photo by: Eran Wolkovsky

When he met with Eric Falt, UNESCO’s assistant director general for external relations and public information, Ambassador Nimrod Barkan was stunned to be handed a copy of this cartoon and an official letter of protest from UNESCO’s director general, Irina Bokova. Falt told Barkan the cartoon constituted incitement.

“A cartoon like this endangers the lives of unarmed diplomats, and you have an obligation to protect them,” Falt said, according to an Israeli source. “We understand that there is freedom of the press in Israel, but the government must prevent attacks on UNESCO.”

Barkan pointed out that the government has no control over editorial cartoons printed in the papers. “Ask yourselves what you did to make a moderate paper with a deeply internationalist bent publish such a cartoon,” he suggested. “Perhaps the problem is with you.”

After Barkan reported the conversation to the Foreign Ministry, it cabled back: “What exactly does UNESCO want of us – to send our fine boys to protect UNESCO’s staff, or to shut down the paper? It seems your work environment is getting more and more reminiscent of ‘Animal Farm.'”

So as I understand it, if you make a joke about a UN agency in a newspaper, and a well earned one, you get reprimanded in person. But if you deliberately and knowingly incite a riot that causes the deaths of many UN employees and destruction of UN property, you don’t even get an angry letter. At least not that I am aware of.

 

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

2 Replies to “UNESCO files complaint against Israeli delegation over Haaretz cartoon”

  1. If UNESCO is partnered with the PA or HAMAS it is de facto assisting an avowed military enemy of Israel. There is no way around that fact.

    According to the UN Charter UNESCO promotes the rule of law and human rights along with fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the UN Charter.

    But the Palestinians didn’t sign the UN Charter on Human Rights. It’s an OIC member (even though it isn’t a state). It signed the Cairo Convention Against Human Rights. They are not obligated to promote human rights even while recieving charity from an organization that is officially obligated itself to support of human rights.

    While the PA arrests bloggers who express their freedom of speach and freedom of concience AND HAMAS beats people up for playing music at weddings (and fires rockets at civilian targets), a UN organization that supports human rights should not be pouring money down their throats.

    That money is aiding a war effort against a member of the UN that is a signatory to the UN convention on Human Rights that has obeyed all obligations of that commitment. It is aiding an organization that does not recognize the UN Convention on Human Rights and does not grant human rights to the people under it’s control nor to people of other countries.

    And considering how crappy international aid workers are now treated there* I wonder why UNESCO continues to assist them.

    *Hamas recently instututed a rule that people working for NGOs must tell them when they are leaving Gaza and give Hamas complete information on what they will be doing and who they will be meeting. And Hamas tried to force NGOs to hand over their complete financial information. I don’t know if the NGO’s submitted to these police state measures.