by VIJAY PRASHAD
The Mamilla Pool and southern portion of the historic Muslim cemetery (located just to the west of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem) in the 19th century. PHOTO/Wikipedia
The United Nations eduational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) often finds itself in the midst of the Israel-Palestine dispute. When UNESCO granted Palestine membership in 2011, the United States and Israel stopped funding the organisation. These two states lost their voting rights last year as a result of their refusal to pay their dues. In mid-January this year, UNESCO cancelled an exhibition sponsored by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre (SWC), a long-time campaigner for Jewish rights born in the aftermath of the Holocaust. The U.S. State Department had been a co-sponsor of the SWC exhibit. It pulled out its sponsorship, and the Arab group within UNESCO sent a sharp note warning that the exhibit “could create potential obstacles related to the peace process in the Middle East”. The U.S. State Department and the Arab group in UNESCO worried that the exhibit—“People, Book, Land: The 3,500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People and the Land of Israel”—which was set to open on January 20 in the UNESCO’s Paris headquarters would undermine Israel-Palestine talks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power and the French campaigner Bernard-Henri Lèvy criticised UNESCO for the cancellation. Levy’s essay on the matter was riddled with falsehoods and exaggerations, which earned him a very mild rebuke from UNESCO’s Director-General, the Bulgarian diplomat Irina Bokova. Apart from showing that Levy’s essay missed the mark, Irina Bokova stated that UNESCO had not cancelled the exhibit but only postponed it until June. The controversy has therefore been tabled.
In all the back and forth over UNESCO’s decision regarding the SWC exhibition, no one mentioned another SWC project which involved UNESCO. To the west of the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, the SWC is constructing a Museum of Tolerance on the historic Mamilla Cemetery, a site that is worthy of UNESCO protection. A prolonged fight over the past decade by the Campaign to Preserve Mamilla Jerusalem Cemetery has come to naught, as UNESCO has tacitly given the SWC the green light to destroy this ancient cemetery in order, ironically, to build its Museum of Tolerance. In the case of the SWC exhibit, UNESCO seems to have dithered because of conflictual signals from the U.S., but in the case of the Mamilla Cemetery it has been a willing ally of the SWC.
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Irina Bokova did nothing visible to prevent the building of the Museum of Tolerance. Despite repeated calls on UNESCO to act since 2010, it did not even sent a Special Representative to study the situation on the ground. This was not from lack of mandate or resources. When Mali’s Ansar Dine destroyed Timbuktu’s ancient tombs, Irina Bokova took to CNN where she wrote a strong essay titled “Timbuktu Tomb Attack is an Attack on Our Humanity”. The attack on these tombs, she wrote, “is not only an attack on Timbuktu’s cultural heritage but also its values of tolerance…. It is an attack against the physical evidence that peace and dialogue is possible…. We call it an attack against humanity.” Irina Bokova went personally to Mali, calling for the reconstruction of the mausoleums “as soon as possible”. In February 2013, along with French President Francois Hollande, Irina Bokova returned to Mali and called for the cultural restoration to be done immediately as an essential element for national unity and reconciliation.
No similar enthusiasm was visible for the destruction of ancient tombs in Jerusalem, also a sign of tolerance —Mamilla is home to the tombs of Christians and Muslims (including Sufis). The destruction of one set of tombs is a “crime against humanity” while that of another is received with silence. One brings the Director-General of UNESCO to the site of the destruction, but the other does not even merit a visit by one of her representatives.
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