Netanyahu takes flak for support of anti-Israel UNESCO appointment

Kadima yesterday slammed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's agreement to lift Israel's opposition to the appointment of an extreme anti-Israel Egyptian official as secretary-general of UNESCO.

MK Yohanan Plesner (Kadima) said that, "While Netanyahu talks high and mighty about the need to stand strong for Israel's interests, he gives in on essential matters. I expect Foreign Minister [Avigdor] Lieberman to adhere to the professional opinion prevalent at the Foreign Ministry and among prominent intellectuals, including Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, and work to counteract the prime minister's directive, which contradicts Israel's national interest."

Farouk Hosni, who has served as Egypt's culture minister since 1987, is strongly opposed to normalization with Israel and has made a number of anti-Israel statements in recent years, some of them bordering on anti-Semitic.

Israel agreed to lift its objection for his appointment to the UN's culture and education organization following an apparent deal Netanyahu struck with Mubarak, which was finalized in Sharm el-Sheikh on May 11. The details of the deal were kept secret and not reported to the media, although it represented a sharp shift in Israeli policy.

Netanyahu's pledge to Mubarak goes against the Foreign Ministry's position and scuttled a worldwide campaign Israel had been mounting against the appointment.

Last Friday, three prominent Jewish intellectuals published a letter on the Internet and in European and American newspapers calling for UN members to oppose Hosni's appointment to UNESCO due to his opposition to normalization and his declaration that he "would burn Israeli books in Egyptian libraries."

In addition to Wiesel, the letter was signed by the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy and the director of the film "Shoah," Claude Lanzmann.

Unaware that Netanyahu had withdrawn Israel's objection to the appointment, the three wrote that it is inconceivable for a man like Hosni to be put in charge of the most important international organization dealing with culture, education and science. Hosni, they wrote, is "the opposite of a man of peace, dialogue, and culture." They also called him "a dangerous man, an inciter of hearts and minds."

"There is only little, very little time left to avoid committing the major mistake of elevating Mr. Farouk Hosni above others to this eminent post... We must, without delay, appeal to everyone's conscience to keep UNESCO from falling into the hands of a man who, when he hears the word 'culture,' responds with a book burning," the three wrote.