- The UNESCO vote
seems clearly a response to the expansionist, jihadist aspirations of
members of the OIC who sponsored it: Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco,
Oman, Qatar and Sudan.
- Some analysts
consider a vote to abstain to be a victory for Israel, but for Spain,
Greece, France, Sweden, Slovenia, and Italy it was blatant appeasement and
fear of their own often-violent Muslim minorities: "Please, please,
don't blow up our capital cities. We will reject Jewish and Christian
history and pretend Jesus chased the money changers from the steps of
Montmartre."
- UNESCO's
Director General Irina Bokova had already announced her opposition to the
resolution, a position for which she received death threats.
- Having
demonstrable historical fact, such as Jewish patrimony on the Temple Mount
in Jerusalem, subject to the whims of the UN, in which, as the late Abba
Eban said, Arabs could muster a majority to decide the sun rises in the
West, is not a positive proposition.
- The question
remains how to convince nations in the West to stand for themselves in the
face of Islamists committed to replacing them.
Last week, the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) voted Christian and Jewish heritage off of
the Temple Mount in Jerusalem; Tuesday they ratified their perfidy. The vote
seems clearly a response to the expansionist, jihadist aspirations of members of
the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) that sponsored it: Algeria,
Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and Sudan. The vote, and the behind the
scenes machinations, deserve evaluation.
Upfront:
- Group 1: The "in favor" voters are a nasty
collection of corrupt, dictatorial, largely Islamist (traditional Islamic
theology gives Jews their place on the Temple Mount; these Islamists
appear intent on removing all traces of Christian and Jewish presence from
the Middle East) or Marxist, and unanimously frightening places. They are,
in the immortal words French diplomat Daniel Bernard applied to Israel,
"shitty little countries." Even the big ones. But see below for
a caveat.
- Group 2: The US, UK, the Netherlands, Estonia Germany and
Lithuania had nothing to be ashamed of in the first round; they voted
"against." But see below for a caveat.
- Group 3: Some analysts consider a vote to abstain to be a
victory for Israel, but for Spain, Greece, France, Sweden, Slovenia and
Italy it was blatant appeasement of Group 1 and fear of their own
often-violent Muslim minorities: "Please, please, don't blow up our
capital cities. We will reject Jewish and Christian history and pretend
Jesus chased the money changers from the steps of Montmartre."
If the West had stood for its own history, it would
have mattered. Democratic Japan and South Korea should have voted
"against" as well. There might be a narrow exception for India, which
had never before failed to vote in favor of an Arab-led anti-Israel resolution.
- Group 4: Israel's friends in Africa were a disappointment --
Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Togo and Uganda abstained. Can we
dump on them? Yes, we can. Isn't it too much to expect African
countries to stand on principle when Western European countries duck? No,
it is not. True, Israel will not make them pay for their "in
favor" vote, but countries that benefit from their relations with
Israel in a profound and concrete way(check especially
Uganda and Ghana) can and should stand with Israel in the face of Arab
countries -- heirs to colonial Muslim slave-traders and still practice
slavery today -- who drained African coffers for oil money and exported
radical Islamic jihad to the continent. In this hemisphere, Haiti, where
IsrAID is for the second time promptly on the ground to help Haitians
recover from a natural disaster, is particularly disappointing.
