Madam Director-General,
In the 28 years of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s NGO accreditation to UNESCO, it came as a shock to learn in February 2020 from the well-respected organization NGO Monitor, that the organization had granted academic certificates to terrorism “graduates” and their murderous “instructors.”
The NGO Monitor report focused on a 2018 ceremony at An Najah University in Nablus to celebrate 61 Palestinian terrorists who had completed a course on “Human Rights” while incarcerated in Israeli prisons. The university had claimed the ceremony was organized by UNESCO.
UNESCO then denied responsibility for the actions of the University Chairs in its name, even when they abuse the good reputation of the organization. We are aware, however, that member states’ National Commissions in regular contact with Paris headquarters can impact on unacceptable UNESCO University Chairs behavior.
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Jan. 3, 2021
Bashar Hamad, 16, of the Qalandiyah refugee camp and Yousef Taha, 17, of Kafr Qaddum don’t know each other. But they form part of the unseen statistic of Palestinians shot and wounded by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank last year.
Of the total, 632 were wounded by sponge- or rubber-tipped metal bullets, including 127 minors, while 155 were wounded by live fire, including 28 minors. And that’s on top of the 1,513 who were suffocated by tear gas and needed treatment on the spot or at a clinic, among them 195 minors.
The two teens have something else in common: The soldiers’ bullets hit them in the head. Bashar lost his right eye and was given a temporary prosthetic eye covered by a bandage; he’s now waiting to get his permanent prosthetic eye – maybe in Jordan, maybe in Israel. Yousef suffers from skull fractures, incessant headaches and a loss of balance.