Netanyahu: Declines Unesco invitation

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had turned down an invitation on Wednesday to a Unesco conference on antiSemitism during a visit to New York, over its “egregious bias” against the Jewish state.

Israel withdrew from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2017, accusing it of adopting antiIsraeli policies, following the lead of the United States.

“While I commend all efforts to combat anti- Semitism, I have decided not to participate in this week’s Unesco conference on antiSemitism due to the organisation’s persistent and egregious bias against Israel,” the prime minster said in a statement issued by his office.

The prime minister, who is currently in New York to attend the annual United Nations General Assembly, said that Unesco “must do more than host a conference on anti- Semitism. It must stop practising antiSemitism.”

While not directly addressing Netanyahu’s no- show at the conference, Unesco’s head said that education was the best way to combat intolerance and discrimination.

“Antisemitism undermines fundamental rights in general,” the organisation’s directorgeneral Audrey Azoulay said at the conference.

“To address it is to defend fundamental freedoms. It is to defend the equal dignity of all human beings.” — AFP