Italian Jewish Response to the UNESCO Big Lie & Western Collaboration In It

Fiona Diwan, editor of the Bulletin of the Jewish Community of Milan, had some sharp words for UNESCO over its sinister vote "revising" the known history of Jerusalem and the Jewish role in that history. She also had sharp words for her own government and other EU and Western governments that collaborated in that vote by voting in favor or by merely abstaining. By abstaining they refused to take an honest stand on the integrity of known history. The West stays on the route towards barbarism.

Fiona Diwan in Mosaico, il Bollettino of the Milan Jewish Community, November 2016, no. 11:
Every month, here on earth, we cannot even count the pieces of archeological evidence and the discoveries of Jewish, Biblical, Hasmonean, and Herodian antiquities. However, France and Italy pretended not to know that. and were ready to exhibit the most scandalous silence when they abstained from the vote on the motion at UNESCO labeled "occupied Palestine," in which last month any tie between the Temple Mount and Judaism and Christianity was definitively denied. Among so many things that it did, the motion cancelled the Hebrew names of all the places on the Temple Mount in order to keep only the Arabic names. By now, everything has been written about this ignominious text. It is a text that falsifies history, denies the ancestral tie between Jerusalem and the Jewish people, once again giving in to the pressures and the intellectual terrorism of the Arab states and the Palestinian Authority. I want to point out that England, Holland, the United States, Germany, Lithuania, and Estonia voted against the motion.
We hoped that Italy and a France would have been more courageous by rejecting this buffoonish text. We would never have thought that at the session of the definitive vote, they would have chosen to abstain, thereby endorsing UNESCO's perverse calling in the delegitimization of Israel. Because, obviously, this is what was at stake. A delegitimization that runs in parallel with the demonization of Israel and the new European antisemitism with an Arab-Muslim matrix and its demographic explosion on the continent of Europe.

Ogni mese, quaggiù, non si contano le evidenze archeologiche e le scoperte di antichità giudaiche, bibliche, asmonee, erodiane. Eppure Francia e Italia hanno fatto finto di non saperlo, pronte a esibire il più scandoloso silenzio quando si sono astenute al voto della mozione Unesco denominate "Palestina occupata," con cui si è negato il mese scarso, in via definitive, qualsiasi legame tra il Monte del Tempio, l'ebraismo e il cristianesimo.  Tra le tante cose, la mozione cancellava i nomi ebraici da tutti i luoghi del Monte del Tempio per mantenere solo quelli in arabo. Su questo testo ignominioso si è ormai scritto di tutto, un testo che falsifica la storia, nega il legame ancestrale tra Gerusalemme e il popolo ebraico, cedendo, una volta di più, alle pressioni e al terrorismo intellettuale degli stati arabi e dell’Autorità palestinese. Voglio qui ricordare che Inghilterra, Olanda, Stati Uniti, Germania, Lituania e Estonia avevano votato contro. Speravamo in una Italia e Francia più coraggiose nel rigettare questo testo buffone. Mai avremmo pensato che, in sede di voto definitivo, avrebbero scelto l’astensione avallando così la vocazione perversa dell’Unesco alla delegittimazione di Israele. Perché, ovviamente, di questo si tratta.
 Una delegittimazione che corre in parallelo con la demonizzazione di Israele e col nuovo antisemitismo europeo di matrice arabo-musulmana e la sua esplosione demografica in terra d’Europa. [testo qui]

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The Italian daily newspaper, Il Foglio, sponsored a demonstration against the UNESCO in Rome, in front of the UNESCO offices, I believe. It was rather well-attended for an event of this kind.
See the video at the link [qui]

Outrageous UNESCO Vote against History -- Craven European Response

The European and Arab countries that denied Jewish history in Israel demonstrated hostility to history in the notorious UNESCO vote that presented Jerusalem as an Arab-Muslim city.  In this case, we are dealing with facts continuously known in both the Arab-Muslim and Western historical traditions. Those who deny the Jewish identity of the city of Jerusalem are inventing a fake history apparently required for political/diplomatic purposes. But a lie. Now Western countries like France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and Spain have long traditions of historical scholarship, which includes knowledge about the Land of Israel with which these countries have been in contact since the time when all of these countries plus the Land of Israel itself were part of the Roman Empire.

Since the study of the Latin language has long been part of higher education in those lands and they take pride in their scholars --who exemplify and demonstrate their higher civilization-- there is no excuse for the governments and foreign ministries of these lands not to know the real history as related in Latin [and Greek] ancient books. Even an abstention from voting against the lying resolution proposed in UNESCO bodies by Arab states on Jerusalem is shameful. Yes, it is shameful to let a historical lie go unopposed. To be sure, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy regretted his foreign ministry's vote which he may have been unaware of.

I do not mean that only ancient Latin or Greek writings are authoritative on the history of ancient Israel. Far from it. Jewish works in Hebrew and  Aramaic are important too (as well as writings by Jews in Latin and Greek). But let us approach it this way. The bigot, the Judeophobic ignoramus, including the academic variety, will say that he cannot accept Jewish accounts of Jewish history because Jewish historians are "biased". Parenthetically, the rejection of Jewish historians represents bias too. In this case, challenge this bigot or ignoramus --whichever label you like-- to accept accounts by non-Jews in Latin, Greek and other languages. The Roman historian Tacitus supplied an account of the Roman-Jewish war from 66 CE to 73 CE in his Histories. The Romans took Jerusalem in the summer of the year 70 CE and destroyed the Jewish Temple at the same time. The Roman general Titus Caesar won the war, however, not only with Roman legions but with auxiliary forces including a "strong contingent of Arabs" [various translations vary. See Tacitus' Histories V:1:2 ]. I quoted the Latin original and various translations years ago on this blog. Now I will quote what he wrote farther on in his book which is highly explicit in refuting the UNESCO lies:

V:8:1 --  The greater part of Judea [note that Tacitus calls the country Judea] is divided up into villages. They also have cities. The capital of that people is Jerusalem.

So Tacitus and Romans generally recognized Jerusalem as the Jewish capital. Rivka Fishman wrote a scholarly article about this recognition in Greek and Latin literature for the Jewish Political Studies Review. The key phrase that is important here is, "The capital of that people is Jerusalem." See the Latin original just below.

Now here is the Latin original of  the quote from Tacitus above:
V:8:1 -- Magna pars Iudaeae uicis dispergitur; habent et oppida; Hierosolyma genti caput.
[for full original of V:8:I see here]

The key word in that key phrase is "genti" which can be "of the people" or "of the nation." It is a declined form of the word gens meaning people or nation. Since Tacitus calls the country Judea and since the whole text, the whole context, furthermore, is about the Jewish revolt in Judea, we see that the "people" or gens (genti) in the phrase means the Jewish people or nation.

Full disclosure: While I write these lines I am translating from an Italian translation since I do not have an English translation available. The study of Latin is still important in Italy and the Italian translations from ancient Latin texts are fully as reliable as the English and American  translations of those works. Here is my source for the Latin and Italian texts: Tacito, Le Storie a cura di Francesco Nenci. Here is his Italian translation:

V:8:1 -- Gran parte della Giudea e' suddivisa in villaggi; hanno anche citta'; la capitale di quel popolo e' Gerusalemme. [for full original of V:8:I see here]

One of the reasons that this line from Tacitus is not more widely known in the English-speaking world may be that some translators into English of Tacitus' Histories have chosen not to translate the Latin word genti into English, for whatever reason.

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UPDATINGS/ADDITIONS AS OF 31 October 2016

Here is one of many good commentaries on the UNESCO disgrace -- [here]
Here is  a commentary by Herbert London -- here.
Rivka Fishman on the relevant line:
"Tacitus, Historiae V, 8:1, in Menahem Stern, Greek  and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Vol. II, No. 281,1980), 21,28. The Latin reads: “Hierosolyma genti caput.” The term “gens” refers to the people of Judea, the Jews, mentioned in the first part of the sentence." [here]
Tablet online mag [here] on Arab accusation that Israel is trying to destroy the al-Aqsa  Mosque, built on the Temple Mount and effectively usurping it.
The Boston Globe ran a good editorial on the issue of the shameful UNESCO vote [here]

UNESCO Presented Ancient Israeli Mosaics -- Once Upon a Time

UNESCO was not always as hostile to Israel as it is now. This UN body, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, was once not as corrupt as it is today. As recently as 1965, UNESCO published --together with the French publisher Flammarion-- the book Israeli Byzantine Mosaics [French title: "Mosaiques Byzantines Israeliennes", by Ernst Kitzinger (Paris: Flammarion 1965). At that time, UNESCO wanted to promote art to the masses. So they published, with Flammarion, a series called Great Art in Pocket Editions [Grand Art en Editions de Poche]. Israeli Byzantine Mosaics was part of that series. I bought it at the UN building in New York in those days. As I understand, books in the series were also published in English and maybe other languages besides French.

The mosaic was a highly developed art form in the Byzantine period preceding the Arab-Muslim conquests. It did not die off in the East --including Israel-- immediately after the conquest but it died out gradually, slowly, as did other features of civilization. Many more mosaics from that period have been found in Israel since Kitzinger's book was put out by UNESCO. Some of the mosaics are Jewish, as at Beyt Alpha and Tsipori [Sepphoris], others are Christian and pagan [early in Byzantine times]. Yet the techniques and workmanship are strikingly similar, indicating that the same workshop or workshops served Jews, Samaritans, Christians and pagans.

Here are two of the Jewish mosaics:

Huldah [location]: Mosaic floor with seven-branched menorah [candelabrum] from the Holy Temple in Jerusalem plus other Jewish ritual objects. These latter are, from right to left, a shofar [ram's horn used on the Rosh haShanah holiday]; an incense shovel as used in the Temple; an etrog [citron in English], a citrus fruit used on the Sukkot holiday; and what appears to be a lulav, a palm frond, also used on the Sukkot holiday. The Greek inscription says "Praise for the People." The mosaic is dated to the 6th century.

Beth Alpha [location -- Beyt Alfa בית אלפא]: Mosaic floor. The Binding of Isaac was a favorite Jewish theme in that historical period, since it is the story of the Jews' forefather being saved from death at the last moment by God. This theme appears in a number of Jewish mosaics from the Byzantine period which followed --as we know-- the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE [Hurban haBayit] by Roman legions and their auxiliary forces [including Arabs], and the exclusion of Jews from Jerusalem by Emperor Hadrian in 135 CE. The names Abraham [אברהם] and Yits'haq [יצחק = Isaac] written in Hebrew appear over the heads of those two persons, along with the Hebrew words Al Tishlahh [אל תשלח]. These words mean: "Do not send", part of the words of God's angel to Abraham in Genesis 22:12 , Biblical reading portion: Vayera. The Biblical verse is: Don't send your hand against the boy and don't do anything to him. A modern Jewish translation gives this as: Do not raise your hand against the boy, or do anything to him [The New Jewish Publication Society translation; Philadelphia: JPS 1985]. This mosaic too is dated to the 6th century.

The general importance of the Jewish mosaics is that they refute the present claim of the "Palestine Liberation Organization" and its offshoot, the "Palestinian Authority" that there is no Jewish history in the Land of Israel, the country that they now call "Palestine," the name imposed on the country by the Emperor Hadrian after he had suppressed the Jewish revolt led by Bar Kokhba, 132-135 CE. Note that two languages appear in the inscriptions on these mosaics, Hebrew and Greek. Arabic does not appear. The PLO's denial of Jewish history in the country is made in the PLO charter, Article 20:

The claim of historical or religious ties between the Jews and Palestine does not tally with historical realities nor with the constituents of statehood in their true sense. [PLO Charter, article 20]

The fact that photos of these mosaics were published by UNESCO is doubly important since UNESCO in recent decades has gone along with the lies of the PLO/PA, the Arab states, and the OIC [Organization of the Islamic Conference]. The OIC dominates UNESCO as it does the UN "human rights council" and the UN generally, with 56 or so UN member states belonging to it, more than a quarter of all UN member states. Recently, the UNESCO has admitted "palestine" as a member although Arab domination of the country goes back only to the Arab conquest, completed in 640 CE.

The PLO/PA intends to use UNESCO to impose its false version of history and to assert Muslim domination over Jewish holy places and historic sites in the country which have long been controlled by Muslims [such as the Temple Mount and the Tomb of the Patriarchs/Cave of Machpelah in Hebron]. More recently, in the 1990s, the PLO/PA has claimed Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem and Joseph's Tomb in Sh'khem [Nablus] as Muslim holy places, although in the past Rachel's Tomb was seen as a Jewish shrine and Joseph's Tomb was shared by Jews, Samaritans, Christians and Muslims.