SWC Calls on UNESCO to End Funding to Palestinian Teen Magazine Exalting Hitler

December 21, 2011

Read related Jerusalem Post story:
 


'UNESCO funds Palestinian magazine glorifying Hitler'
Simon Wiesenthal Center asks UN cultural agency to halt its sponsorship of the Palestinian childrens' magazine

---

December 21, 2011     

Ten-year old describes dream in article that she meets Hitler who tells her that he killed the Jews “…so you would all know that they are a nation who spreads destruction….”   

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is calling on UNESCO to cut all funding for a Palestinian youth magazine for publishing material exalting Hitler.  Zayzafuna, a magazine which supposedly promotes democracy and tolerance, published an article by a ten-year-old Palestinian girl who said that in her dreams, Hitler told her, “Yes.  I killed them [the Jews] so you would all know that they are a nation who spreads destruction all over the world.” The article was brought to the public's attention by Palestinian Media Watch.

Responding to the Wiesenthal Center’s protest, the office of the Director General of UNESCO wrote the Center’s Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, and said in part, “Allow me to underscore that UNESCO takes this matter extremely seriously and it cannot but strongly deplore and condemn the statements… We will bring this matter to the attention of the concerned Palestinian authorities.” 

“This response is inadequate,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center, who added that it was not the first time that this type of hate material has been presented in Palestinian schools.  “Can you imagine the audacity of a magazine that supposedly promotes tolerance and democracy using Adolph Hitler as a model? We call on UNESCO to immediately end funding to the Zayzafuna magazine,” he added.  

“Let us remember that the US is the largest funder of UNESCO and it is largely the American taxpayer who made the UNESCO grant to this magazine possible.  It is exactly this kind of behavior by the Palestinians in the educational and cultural domain that makes such a mockery of UNESCO's recent admission of Palestine as a full member,” Rabbi Hier concluded.   

Read earlier exchange of email between SWC and UNESCO here...

 
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).   

For more information, please contact the Center's Public Relations Department, 310-553-9036, join the Center on Facebook, www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter,  or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter page or mobile device.