by Raphael Ahren
In a first, body’s director-general vetoes inclusion of incendiary material in world heritage list, arguing it ‘could fuel’ anti-Semitism
The head of UNESCO vetoed the inclusion of a
vast collection of Palestine-themed posters in a register of world
heritage, arguing that the posters fuel hatred and anti-Semitism, The
Times of Israel has learned.
The decision by Irina Bokova to block the Liberation Graphics Collection of Palestine Posters from being accepted into UNESCO’s Memory of the World program marks the first time such a nomination has been vetoed.
The collection was initially accepted by an
advisory board but then blocked by Bokova, who said some of the posters
were “totally unacceptable” and “run counter to the values of UNESCO,”
the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Besides universal themes of occupation and the
motifs depicting the struggle for liberation and peace — such as barbed
wire and white doves — many of the posters feature machine guns and
hand grenades, extolling armed resistance and terrorism. Some of the
posters glorify Palestinian suicide attacks and other murderous
missions against Israeli civilians, including a 1978 massacre known in
Israel as the bloodiest terror attack in the country’s history.
In August, the collection — which includes some 1,700 posters celebrating the Palestinian national liberation movement — was accepted for formal review by UNESCO’s International Memory of the World Register, which strives to preserve archival holdings of “world significance and outstanding universal value.”
Usually, nominations are considered by an
international advisory board, and, if approved, confirmed by the
organization’s director-general. In this particular case, too, the board
reviewed the nomination and none of its members raised any concerns,
which indicated that the board would recommend that the director-general
formally accept the collection into the register.
‘Some posters seem totally unacceptable and run counter to UNESCO values’
However in this case, Bokova, surprised that
no one had raised any objections to the posters, said she has decided to
block the collection’s approval.
“In my capacity of Director General of UNESCO,
I will oppose any such proposal for inscription,” she wrote in a
December 23 letter to the chair of the advisory board, Helena
Asamoah-Hassan. Some of the posters “would seem totally unacceptable and
run counter to the values of UNESCO and its aspiration to build peace
in the minds of men and women,” Bokova wrote.
Clearly, “some of these posters are
offensive,” she wrote in another letter to World Jewish Congress CEO
Robert Singer, who had protested the nomination. “It is my conviction
that UNESCO should not associate itself with such documents whose
inscription could fuel hatred and anti-Semitic perceptions.”
Bokova addressed a similar letter to the
Palestinian ambassador to UNESCO, Elias Sanbar, warning that the
collection’s inclusion in the program could promote “hate and
anti-Semitism.”
The collection’s nomination has been widely reported, including in Arab media and pro-Palestinian websites.
Dan Walsh, the owner and curator of the Palestine Poster Project
Archives, had hoped the nomination could help the art form enter the
mainstream.
“The significance for the genre is that it’s been recognized by an international body,” he said last fall,
before Bokova put the kibosh on the collection’s inclusion into the
Memory of the World Register.
“Up until now, the Palestine poster has
sort of existed in the shadows, it hasn’t really been legitimated. The
artwork — the art of the Palestinian revolution, of the Palestinian
liberation struggle — has not been legitimated in the West. It’s been
considered anti-Semitic, or anti-Israeli, or patently unacceptable for
mainstream consumption. I think this nomination has the potential to
change that.”
In 2011, UNESCO admitted Palestine as a full
member, becoming one of the first international bodies to recognize a
Palestinian state.
In January 2014, the organization made headlines for canceling an exhibition about the Jewish people’s connection to the Holy Land due to Arab pressure. After an international outcry,
the exhibition eventually opened on June 11 in Paris. However, from its
original name, “The 3,500 year relationship of the Jewish People to the
Land of Israel,” the words “Land of Israel” were removed as per UNESCO’s demand and replaced with “Holy Land.” A panel about Jewish refugees from Arab countries was also cut from that exhibition.
At the time, Bokova was accused of giving into to Arab pressure, but organizers of the exhibition later said she had regained their esteem by making public statements that could be characterized as strongly “pro-Jewish.”
Now, Jewish leaders congratulated her again —
for taking a principled stance in preventing the Palestine-themed
posters from receiving UNESCO’s stamp of approval. Singer, the World
Jewish Congress CEO, lauded her “personal courage and integrity in
personally looking into” the matter. In a January 12 letter, he thanked
her for the “unambiguous opposition to all forms of hatred,
anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.”
The ultimately rejected collection is part of the larger Palestine Poster Project Archives,
“which hold paper and/or digital images of almost ten thousand
Palestine posters by more than 1,900 artists from 72 countries,” according to a press release from last summer. Since it includes all posters that contain the word “Palestine,” many early Zionist themes can be found as well.
The collection nominated for inclusion in the
World Memory program comprises some 1,700 posters created by Palestinian
and international artists “in solidarity with the quest for Palestinian
self-determination,” according to a document on the UNESCO website.
“The posters in the Liberation Graphics
Collection document Palestinian responses to invasion, war,
displacement, diaspora, occupation, and imprisonment, as well as
Palestinian self-assertion and resistance, during the second half of the
twentieth century.”
The Palestine poster genre “is unique in world
art and a much-overlooked feature of Palestinian cultural heritage,”
the document states. The posters are “important repositories of primary
data on Palestinian political and social history.”
Glorifying a ‘military operation’ that killed 38 civilians
Many of the images, which can be viewed free of charge here, feature violent themes. One poster,
created by Emile Menhem in Lebanon of the mid-1980s, shows the
Palestinian national colors coming out of the barrel of a machine gun.
It reads: “Fatah — with rifles we will liberate Palestine.”
Another poster, headlined “The path to the homeland,” shows Dalal Mughrabi, who in 1978 led what Walsh, the collection’s curator, called “a military operation near Tel Aviv.” He was referring to the coastal road massacre,
in which Palestinian terrorists armed with Kalashnikov rifles, RPG
light mortars and high explosives hijacked a bus and killed 38 Israeli
civilians. Mughrabi is honored with several posters, as are other members of the crew that carried out the massacre, which is considered the deadliest terror attack in Israel’s history.
In 1982, Abu Man created a black poster
featuring the lower half of a bleeding body superimposed on a yellow
Star of David. “Sabra-Shatila — the Massacre,” it reads. A 1977 work by Kamal Kaabar
shows a fist destroying a blue Star of David, together with the line
“Fatah — 12 years (of struggle) for a free Arab Palestine.” These
posters, too, were included in the collection blocked by Bokova.
Raphael Ahren
Source: http://www.timesofisrael.com/unesco-head-nixes-offensive-unacceptable-palestine-poster-collection/
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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