UN partly backtracks on decision to censor Israeli exhibit - Shlomo Cesana and Israel Hayom Staff

by Shlomo Cesana and Israel Hayom Staff

U.N. rejects posters that discuss Zionism, Jerusalem, and Israeli Arabs • Israel: U.N. is de facto enacting "Zionism is racism" resolution that was reversed in 1991 • StandWithUs advocacy group, which co-sponsored the exhibit: Reversal "a major victory."

The poster defining Zionism as "the liberation movement of the Jewish people" has been allowed into the exhibit. | Photo credit: Israeli Mission to the United Nations

United Nations representatives have partially backed down from an attempt to censor posters on Zionism, Jerusalem, and Israeli Arabs that are part of the content of an Israeli exhibition that opened at the U.N. headquarters in New York on Monday, deciding to allow the Zionism-themed poster to be shown as planned. 

The Israeli U.N. delegation and the StandWithUs advocacy organization conceived the exhibit and received approval to move ahead with it, but when the project was unveiled, three out of 13 parts of the exhibit -- displays about Zionism, Jerusalem, and Israeli Arabs -- were rejected for display on the grounds that they were "inappropriate."

According to The Jerusalem Post, the Jerusalem poster shows pictures of holy sites and states that "the Jewish people are indigenous to Israel and have maintained a continuous presence in the land since 1,000 [BCE]. Jerusalem has been the center and focus of Jewish life and religion for more than three millennia and is holy to Christians and Muslims as well."

The display on Israeli Arabs explains that they are "the largest minority in Israel, making up 20% of Israel's population" and describes them as "equal citizens under the law." 

The third display defines Zionism as "the liberation movement of the Jewish people, who sought to overcome 1,900 years of oppression and regain self-determination in their indigenous homeland."

Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon reached out to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and asked that the decision be reversed.

"By rejecting content about Zionism, the U.N. is questioning the very existence of the State of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people," Danon said. "The U.N. must reverses this outrageous decision and apologize to the Jewish people."

The Israeli mission also pointed out that in 1991, the U.N. reversed a resolution equating Zionism with racism, which had passed 16 years earlier, and that by censoring the current exhibit, "the UN is de facto enacting this old resolution."

Danon welcomed the decision to display the poster on Zionism as planned, but said the U.N. must allow the other rejected elements of the exhibit to go up, as well. 

StandWithUs Executive Director Shahar Azani welcomed the U.N.'s reversal of its censorship of the Zionism poster.

"The very fact that the U.N. reversed its decision is a major victory, which proves how important it is to stand our ground on issues that are important to us," Azani told The Jerusalem Post.

Shlomo Cesana and Israel Hayom Staff

Source:  http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=32861

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