UNESCO's latest craziness:

This cartoon, which appeared in the Israeli Leftist daily newspaper Haaretz drew some extraordinary reaction from the subject of its satire, namely, UNESCO:

"When he met with Eric Falt, UNESCO's assistant director general for external relations and public information, Ambassador Nimrod Barkan was stunned to be handed a copy of this cartoon and an official letter of protest from UNESCO's director general, Irina Bokova. Falt told Barkan the cartoon constituted incitement.

"A cartoon like this endangers the lives of unarmed diplomats, and you have an obligation to protect them," Falt said, according to an Israeli source. "We understand that there is freedom of the press in Israel, but the government must prevent attacks on UNESCO."

Barkan pointed out that the government has no control over editorial cartoons printed in the papers. "Ask yourselves what you did to make a moderate paper with a deeply internationalist bent publish such a cartoon," he suggested. "Perhaps the problem is with you."

After Barkan reported the conversation to the Foreign Ministry, it cabled back: "What exactly does UNESCO want of us - to send our fine boys to protect UNESCO's staff, or to shut down the paper? It seems your work environment is getting more and more reminiscent of 'Animal Farm.'"

Can you believe this story? I reminds me of the time when Mubarak repeatedly lodged formal complaints with Arik Sharon because an Israeli comedian, Yatzpan, was making fun of him in his stand-up routines. This is where we are today: UNESCO behaving like an Arab dictator.

Maybe this is UNESCO's top brass pay-back to those "Jews" for blocking their preferred candidate for Director-General UNESCO, back in 2009.

Who was the candidate?

"Egypt's culture minister is a top candidate to head the United Nations' main intellectual body,"

Why was his nomination frustrated?

"Farouk Hosni's candidacy could now be doomed, after he told the Egyptian parliament that if any Israeli books were found in Egyptian libraries, he would burn them."

And indeed he was not elected. And blamed it on .. who else but ... the Joos?

“America, Europe and the Jewish lobby brought down Farouk Hosni,” read a headline in an independent daily newspaper, Al Masry Al Yom. The foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, criticized “international Judaism and Western powers” in a television interview. Mr. Hosny himself helped stoke those sentiments, saying, “There was a group of the world’s Jews who had a major influence in the elections who were a serious threat to Egypt taking this position.”

Perhaps I'm being unjustly suspicious of this venerable organization. Perhaps they thought that the Minister-candidate was only exercising his freedom of speech in that "quip" about burning Israeli books. And freedom of expression is a sacred right for this organization, as we have just learned.

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Update:

"UNESCO has worked tirelessly to undermine Israel's cultural and historical connection to holy sites. In November 2010, the agency classified Rachel's Tomb, the third holiest site in Judaism as a mosque, Bilal bin Rabah Mosque, "an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territories." A study of Palestinian Authority school textbooks in 2008, however found that the site was never referred to as such, and instead was known at the "Dome of Rachel," until 2001, when the term, Bilal bin Rabah Mosque suddenly emerged in new educational textbooks.

According to the Palestinian Minister of Tourism Khouloud Daibes Abu Dayyeh, in addition to Hebron, the Palestinians are also asking UNESCO to recognize 19 other sites in the Holy Land to be incorporated as Palestinian World Heritage Sites including Jericho and Bethlehem."