In the first such action by a major medical school, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a component Institution of Yeshiva University, has called on its faculty to “discontinue all participation” in the United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The move was unanimously approved by Einstein’s Faculty-Senate. The school took the stand In protest against UNESCO’s exclusion of Israel from the agency’s regional grouping, under pressure of a bloc mobilized by the Arab oil-producing states.
“The cynical action taken against Israel marks the transformation of the world’s largest scientific and cultural forum into an Instrument of nationalist politics,” the college declared In a statement made public here. “The politicization of science and culture, already a fact of life in totalitarian societies, Including those of the Arab states, has now been extended into the international arena. The learned community can ignore this development only at its peril,”
In calling on Einstein’s medical and research faculty of 2000 to withdraw from all UNESCO programs and to withhold any solicited support from that agency the school warned: “For the first time In UN history agreement with a majority has been made a condition of membership In a UN body, This raises for every nation and for the scientific community in particular, the ominous perspective of a test for political orthodoxy.”
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