Somehow, I missed this welcome headline at the Jerusalem Post.
Bokova beats Hosni for UNESCO headSolomonia points to the ADL report on the vote as well. And, like Sol, I'm pleasantly shocked by the news. This editorial (entitled "Wrong man for UNESCO), which appeared in the JPost on September 11, explained in substantial detail the reasons why Hosni would have been a most inappropriate choice and castigated the Israeli government for failing to take a firm stand against him. It left me with little hope that he would lose the vote.
UNESCO said on Tuesday that a career diplomat from Bulgaria has defeated a controversial Egyptian candidate to head the United Nations agency for culture and education.The chairman of UNESCO's executive board said Bulgaria's ambassador to France, Irina Bokova, has beaten longtime Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni in secret balloting.
UNESCO's press office said Bokova won 31 to 27 in a suspenseful fifth round.
But with 20-20 hindsight, perhaps Israel took the right tack here, regardless of the motive behind it. There will no doubt be plenty of accusations flying and fingers pointing, as there are those who thought it was way past time for a representative of the Arab or Muslim world to lead UNESCO, but they should have chosen their candidate more wisely. And the accusation that "a small country like Israel has been able to control so many powerful countries from the West" will perhaps get just a bit less traction.It was left to Nobel peace laureate Elie Wiesel, philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy and Shoa producer Claude Lanzmann to uphold Jewish and Israeli honor and warn that Hosny "is the opposite of a man of peace, dialogue and culture," that he "is a dangerous man, an inciter of hearts and minds." The Simon Wiesenthal Center dubbed him "a major threat to the very values of UNESCO."
IT'S A shame the Jewish state couldn't do what Diaspora Jews did.
