UNESCO’s move

With regard to “Israel cuts funding to protest UNESCO decision on Hebron” (July 9), the Tomb of the Patriarchs is the burial site of the first Jews. This surely defines it as a Jewish site.

Centuries later, Muhammad found refuge among the Jews of Medina when he was forced out of Mecca. He learned about their beliefs and stories, and adopted many of them as his own. Then he beheaded the men and boys, took the women as slaves and launched his jihad across the Middle East and the world. This might give Muslims a claim to the site. However, calling it “Palestinian” stretches all credulity.

The notion of a people called “the Palestinians” was invented in 1964 when the KGB and Egypt founded the PLO. The purpose of the PLO was to drive out the Jews. During the period of the British Mandate for Palestine, only Jews were called Palestinians. Many of the Arabs of Palestine were recent immigrants from surrounding countries and identified themselves as Egyptians, Syrians, etc. At the UN partition talks, the Syrian ambassador said there was no such thing as Palestine. Ultimately, the UN defined an Arab Palestinian refugee as anyone who lived in the area for two years.

The United Nations is an unabashedly antisemitic organization, dominated by the demands of the 57-member Organization for Islamic Cooperation. Israel, the only shining light in the Middle East, is the excuse for the violence and corruption that is the Islamic world.

That UNESCO sees Israel as its whipping boy is repugnant and ordinary. That the West still pretends the UN has value doesn’t bode well for democracy. LEN BENNETT

Ottawa

UNESCO has tried to obliterate history. What bothers me more, though, is the failure of Pope Francis and leaders of other Christian denominations to speak out against the usurpation of history. Only the Archbishop of Canterbury had the courage to say something.

The world thinks that only Jews are affected by the malevolence of UNESCO. This is not true. Everyone is affected by the Arab hatred of Judaism and Jews. All this talk about a peace process is ridiculous, if not the birthright of hatred.

Until there are Arabs who are educated about the world and the need for truth, there can never be peace. Only by giving voice to the critics of the Arab monopoly can there be hope.

UNESCO and the United Nations have has become a poor kind of farce. THELMA SUSSWEIN

Jerusalem

I expect the next Arab demand of UNESCO – a demand supported by the enlightened Europeans – is to be deemed the original recipients of the Ten Commandments, which was obviously handed down to the “Palestinians” without all those troublesome do-nots. MEIR FACTOR Beitar Illit