Posted: 5/31/2009 10:22:00 PM
Author: Arutz 7 Dispatch
Source: This article originally appeared on the Arutz 7 website on June 1, 2009.
Bidder for Burning Jewish Books Apologizes
(IsraelNN.com) The bid of Egypt’s Minister of Culture Faruq Hosni to head the UN’s cultural wing, UNESCO, has received stiff opposition from Jewish intellectuals due to Hosni’s comments to burn Jewish books. Last week, Nobel Prize laureate Eli Wiesel, philosopher Bernar-Henri Levy, and filmmaker Claude Lanzmann, wrote in an op-ed in the French Le Monde that Hosni is a “dangerous man.” They quoted Hosni’s calling Israeli culture as inhuman, racist. In addition, Hosni remarked about “the infiltration of Jews in international media.”
Hosni subsequently apologized in the same paper about his “book burning” comments. However, he wrote that his comments were made to show the plight of the Arabs living in Judea and Samaria. Although initially opposed to the UNESCO appointment, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has dropped his opposition after Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak made a personal request.
