UN Cancels Jewish Paris Exhibit on Israel Land; Due to Arab League Lodging Last-Minute Protest

A United Nations agency has pulled an exhibit on the Jewish people's "3,500-year relationship" to the land of Israel, after the Arab League lodged a last-minute protest, the Fox News website reports today (January 18, 2014).

The exhibit -- titled "People, Book, Land--The 3,500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People and the Land of Israel" -- was created jointly by the Jewish human rights group the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and was scheduled to open January 20 at UNESCO's Paris headquarters. But less than a week before it was to open, UNESCO informed the SWC it was canceling it because the Arab League had claimed the exhibit "could create potential obstacles related to the peace process in the Middle East," the U.S.-based Jewish newspaper "The Algemeiner" reported.

Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Wiesenthal Center called the cancellation an "absolute outrage."

"The Arabs don't want the world to know that the Jews have a 3,500-year relationship to the Land of Israel," Hier said.