A few years ago, I had judged that the French Philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy is just another pro-Israeli apologetic no matter how contrived his philosophy is in trying to cover up his opinions. I prevented myself from reading anything by him or about him. However, both of our paths crossed twice this month and I find him attacking those who are a thousand times better than him and Israel. Near the beginning of this month, Levy spoke at a conference on the Holocaust in Geneva. He refused to admit that the Arabs had nothing to do with murdering Jews during the Holocaust. To prove his claims, he cited the acquaintance between Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, and Hitler, and the presence of an alleged Arab squad lurking behind Rommel's army and waiting for orders to exterminate the Jews in Palestine. I had commented on Levy's statements on the ninth of this month. I thought that years would go by before I had to mention him again. However, the month was drawing to a close when I found that Levy and Elie Wiesel, who chases dead Nazis instead of Israeli Nazis, in addition to Claude Lanzmann, director of the film "Shoah," wrote a letter inciting the world to oppose the nomination of the Egyptian Minister of Culture Farouk Hosny for the post of Director-General of the UNESCO in Paris. This is despite the fact that the government of extremists in Israel backed away from its opposition to his candidacy, proving that these individuals are even more extreme than the extremists in Israel. I used to know Haj Amin al-Husseini, and I cherish and respect him. His relationship with Hitler started many years before the Holocaust, and he did not kill anyone with his owns hands like the leaders of Israel did, while getting a cover from people like Levy. The Minister Farouk Hosny, whom I've always considered a friend, is a bold and moderate artist and intellectual. He had many times formidably stood against political and religious extremists inside and outside of Egypt, something that the signatories of the letter did not know of, and instead wrote that Farouk Hosny said in April 2001 that "Israel has never contributed to Civilization. The Israeli culture is an inhumane culture; it is an aggressive, racist, and pretentious culture...” Of course, all of the above is true, and the date it was said is as important as its content, since it happened within weeks of the war criminal Ariel Sharon's ascent to the post of prime minister of Israel, and to his role in destroying the peace process. I want to interject here to talk about my stances. When Yitzhak Rabin took the path of the peace process in the nineties, I accepted for the Palestinians to have a state on 22 percent of their land. But when the Israelis choose Benjamin Netanyahu as their prime minister and when he proclaims that he is against a Palestinian state, then I reject all of Israel to be established on the land stolen from Palestinians as David Ben-Gurion himself admitted, a state that has no basis, neither in history nor in geography, and that will remain an illegal settlement until the State of Palestine is established. The Letter objecting to the nomination of Farouk Hosny attributes to him his description of Israel as an enemy, or the greatest enemy, and it is indeed so, as long as a Palestinian state is not established. The letter adds that the Egyptian minister opposed the introduction of Israeli books to the Library of Alexandria, and said that he would burn them himself if they made their way in. We are all opposed to Israeli books and to any normalization with Israel before it ends its criminal occupation, and before the establishment of the independent State of Palestine. The letter, however, ignores the killing of women and children, and wants President Hosni Mubarak himself to withdraw the nomination of his minister “who, when he hears the word 'culture,' responds with a book burning." Farouk Hosny is an enlightened intellectual who is more honest than any of them, and the burning of books did not occur. In reality, what occurred was the burning of civilians inside their homes, during the war of the theft of Palestine in 1948, the tripartite aggression of 1956, the 1967 war that was initiated by Israel, the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the summer war of 2006, the last war in Gaza, and every Israeli war crime in between. Farouk Hosny is innocent of this all. The guilty ones are those who defend the crimes of Israel and cover up for these to the extent of being accomplices. They look back at the crimes committed 60 years or more ago, and ignore the crimes committed today by Jews, just like themselves. If Farouk Hosny is not fit to be the director general of the UNESCO, then who is? I suggest to the post the former Israeli President Moshe Katsav, who is accused of raping a female soldier, or former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who faces corruption charges. But better than this or that is the Mossad chief Meir Dagan, or The Israeli man of the year, who was described after the Israeli second channel chose him last year, as someone who used to kill Palestinians with his own hands. His hobby, as witnessed by Sharon, is to cut off Palestinians' heads with a Japanese knife, instead of say, painting, which is the pastime of Farouk Hosny. I have never heard the name of Dagan, in his rotten 30 years of age, except to be followed with mention of some crime. Yes, I propose Meir Dagan as Israel's candidate to the UNESCO, because he represents the true face of Israel, the face of occupation, killing, destruction and war crimes, or the face that Bernard Henri Levy or stoics like him do not want to see or admit of.
