Wiesenthal Centre Open Letter to United Nations Secretary-General: “I.D. theft of the Jewish and Christian Heritage is how ‘Palestine’ seeks its validation." 

August 27, 2021

PARIS - In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, expressed shock at the former’s reception on 19 August of the so-called “UN Palestine Exhibit Books”. The Exhibition includes: “The Palestinian People: Everlasting Roots, Infinite Horizons ; Unrealized Roots, Unfulfilled Promises ; 70 Years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the Palestinian Naqba (Catastrophe).”

Organized by the UN Committee for the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP) and Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the exhibition is set 29 November, the date of the UN 1947 Partition Resolution for two states - Israel and ‘Palestine - but rejected by the Arab and Muslim world.
 
Mr. Secretary-General, this follows the I.D. theft of the heritage of the Jewish people and Christianity at the annual UN World Heritage Committee. I have attended each meeting since the 2011 entry of “Palestine” that turned it into a battlefield of I.D. theft... Some examples:
 
2012: the Church of the Nativity and the Bethlehem Pilgrimage Route ;

2013: Battir - Betar headquarters for Bar-Kochba's revolt against the Romans ;
 
2014: Rachel's Tomb recognized only as a Mosque ;
 
2015: the Western Wall or Kotel for the Holiest shrine for Judaism, replaced by the Muslim “Buraq Wall” ;
 
2016: the Temple Mount, renamed only in its Islamic identity as Haram esh-Sharif (“the Noble Sanctuary”) ;
 
2017: Hebron and the Tomb of the Patriarchs (Machpela Cave) ;
 
Among the Palestinian list of future claims are the Qumran Caves and the Dead Sea Scrolls.
 
I.D. Theft is how “Palestine” seeks its validation through the theft of the Jewish and Christian narratives. Through supersessionism comes an imperative for deletion of the target from history and geography.
 
In a taxonomy of antisemitism, “I.D. theft” is a tool of genocidal intent to erase the Jewish State from time and space.
 
Your presence, Mr. Secretary-General, at a Palestinian book exhibition that threatens a full member of the UN, the State of Israel, is - perhaps unwittingly - a travesty. Even as another UN agency, UNWRA, publication of text-books that incite “Palestinian youth” to Jew-hatred and calls for Jihad.
 
We urge you, Mr. Secretary-General, to be absent from the 29 November UN ceremony for the destruction of the UN member State of Israel.
 
Most respectfully,


Dr. Shimon Samuels
Director for International Relations
Simon Wiesenthal Centre

For further information contact Dr. Shimon Samuels at csweurope@gmail.com, join the Center on Facebook, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent directly to your Twitter feed.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).