Thursday, November 10, 2011

UNESCO-Palestine politics and France

POLITICS DAY! The UNESCO decision about Palestine comes up in this press release: World Jewish Congress Leaders Held Talks With French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The relevant passage:
WJC Secretary-General Dan Diker raised the issue of Palestinian unilateralism at the United Nations with the French president. He warned of the dangers which the Palestinians' strategy posed, as witnessed by their acceptance as a new member of UNESCO, and said the PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas in his recent UN speech had even denied that Israel is the ancient homeland of the Jewish people. "UNESCO could become a platform to uproot the 3,000-year-old Jewish connection to Israel with a new, fabricated Palestinian narrative," Diker warned.

Sarkozy explained that the French vote in favor of Palestinian UNESCO membership had been the lesser of two evils but he reiterated did not mean that his government would support such a move a the UN Security Council.
Background here and links.