Opuscula Through the Looking Glass

According to Paris-based UNESCO, the organization strives to build networks among nations that enable this kind of solidarity, by:

• Mobilizing for education: so that every child, boy or girl, has access to quality education as a fundamental human right and as a prerequisite for human development.
• Building intercultural understanding: through protection of heritage and support for cultural diversity. UNESCO created the idea of World Heritage to protect sites of outstanding universal value.
• Pursuing scientific cooperation: such as early warning systems for tsunamis or trans-boundary water management agreements, to strengthen ties between nations and societies.
• Protecting freedom of expression: an essential condition for democracy, development and human dignity.

"UNESCO is known as the "intellectual" agency of the United Nations. At a time when the world is looking for new ways to build peace and sustainable development, people must rely on the power of intelligence to innovate, expand their horizons and sustain the hope of a new humanism. UNESCO exists to bring this creative intelligence to life; for it is in the minds of men and women that the defences of peace and the conditions for sustainable development must be built." http://en.unesco.org/about-us/introducing-unesco

Based on its recent Jerusalem Israel decisions, if anyone believes the UNESCO statement, I have a bridge to sell them.

TWO ARTICLES from the Times of Israel web site on Sunday, Oct. 30, 2016 prompted the look at the United Nations Education, Scientific & Cultural Organization (UNESCO) mandate.

The first, headlined

Oldest Hebrew mention of Jerusalem found on rare papyrus from 7th century BCE
belies every recent UNESCO vote on the Jewish connection to Israel’s capital, Jerusalem.

A “drop head” adds

Reference to consignment of wineskins ‘to Jerusalem’ appears on 2,700-year-old First Temple-era scrap believed plundered from Judean Desert cave

The article leads off claiming A RARE, ancient papyrus dating to the First Temple Period — 2,700 years ago — has been found to bear the oldest known mention of Jerusalem in Hebrew.
The fragile text, believed plundered from a cave in the Judean Desert cave, was apparently acquired by the Israel Antiquities Authority during a sting in 2012 when thieves attempted to sell it to a dealer. Radiocarbon dating has determined it is from the 7th century BCE, making it one of just three extant Hebrew papyri from that period, and predating the Dead Sea Scrolls by centuries.

Note five critical words: mention of Jerusalem in Hebrew.

Not Aramaic.

Not Arabic.

Not even Greek or Latin.

Hebrew.

Since the founder of Islam, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn Abdul-Muttalib ibn Hashim, was not born until – according to most scholars – the year 570 of the Current Era (a/k/a AD), it is chronologically impossible to link Jerusalem solely with Islam. Only fools – which apparently populate UNESCO – would close their eyes to historical and archeological facts of which the latest discovery is included.

UNESCO most assuredly will contend that the fragment is a fake; that the radiocarbon dating is tainted and, in the end, that it all is a Judeo-Christian conspiracy against Islam.

Israel’s prime minister, in a “glass half full,” Pollyanna stance, kowtowing to the so called “Palestinian Authority” told reporters

Despite defeat, Netanyahu hails progress for Israel at UNESCO

noting a second United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) vote ignoring Jewish ties to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem was actually a diplomatic achievement for the Jewish state.

Prime minister’s statement notes that fewer countries supported resolution ignoring Jewish ties to Jerusalem than in previous years, more abstained.

Apparently Netanyahu is as politically blind as the UNESCO members who deny Jerusalem’s Jewish history and who automatically vote against Israel on every issue.