Egyptian Culture Minister Hosni Farouk reacts as he returns for a hearing following a break at the UNESCO headquarters on Sept. 17 in Paris. Mr. Hosni, who is campaigning to be the next head of the U.N. office that promotes cultural diversity, outraged many Jews with his comments in April 2008 vowing to burn any Israeli books found in Egypt’s famed Library of Alexandria. (Jacques Brinon/Associated Press)

Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, who was a candidate for secretary general of UNESCO, lost the sought-after post to former Bulgarian Foreign Minister Irina Bokova. Heavy lobbying against Mr. Hosni continued until the last moment.

Mr. Hosni earned the enmity of Jews around the world when he recently promised to burn Hebrew books and boasted that he would be the last Egyptian to visit Israel.

Mr. Hosni forbid Egyptian artists to display their works in Tel Aviv and supported the denunciation of journalists who visited Israel and returned to Cairo with the conclusion that “the monster is not so terrible.”

In addition, Hosni opposed translation of Hebrew literature in Egypt, and refused to open to the Jews the records of the Jewish communities in Egypt, for fear that they would lead to property lawsuits. More than 100,000 Jews were expelled from Egypt during the 1948, 1956 and 1967 wars, without being able to sell their property and without being able to take most possessions with them, while Egyptian Jewish assets in Egyptian banks have been frozen.

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David Bedein
David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.

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