A delegation of artists and writers met here today with the top UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) aide now in the U.S. to ask that recent anti-Israel resolutions of the cultural agency be rescinded or risk total non-cooperation from the world’s intellectual community. The delegation included James Michener, Arthur Miller, Colleen Dewhurst, Julie Harris and Anna Strasberg (Mrs. Lee Strasberg). They presented a letter to John Fobes, the Deputy Director-General, to be transmitted to Amadou M. M’Bow, Director-General in Paris.
The letter said: “We cannot be silent in the face of the blatant subversion of UNESCO’s principles and purposes by politically motivated resolutions aimed at transforming Israel into a veritable pariah in the world community.” It pointed out that UNESCO’s own experts have labeled as “patently false accusations made in the resolution that the excavations (in Jerusalem) constitute a danger to historical monuments.” A second resolution “denying Israel membership in the European regional group virtually places the Jewish State in a kind of international limbo.”
The letter concluded: “We vigorously protest these General Conference resolutions which have shocked mankind’s intellectual community and demand that they be rescinded. Should such action not be forthcoming, our conscience demands that we shall under no circumstances cooperate with an institution whose purposes have been grossly perverted, and we shall call upon our colleagues throughout the world to follow the same course.”
PARIS PROTEST ACTION PLANNED
At a press conference held after the meeting, Miller, who headed the delegation, warned that UNESCO’s anti-Israel action will ultimately result in “the unraveling” of that organization and other international organizations concerned with culture. He said that politics must be separated from culture, adding that UNESCO was founded on the belief that “human culture is universal” and that the anti-Israel decision of the organization deviated from that rule.
Michener said that UNESCO’s charter was “perverted for cheap political reasons.” He disclosed that in the near future a meeting of intellectuals and world “luminaries” from 43 countries will take place in Paris to protest and take action against UNESCO’s decisions concerning Israel. According to the members of the delegation, Fobes promised to forward their letter and protest to M’Bow.
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