CAIRO: Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, a candidate to head UNESCO, has drawn fire from Israel and the Wiesenthal Centre for saying he was prepared to burn Israeli books.
I d burn Israeli books myself if I found any in libraries in Egypt, Hosni said in parliament on May 10 in reply to questioning from an opposition MP.
The comment, which Hosni admits making but which he says must be put into perspective, sparked an official protest from Israel s ambassador in Cairo Shalom Cohen to the foreign ministry.
And this week the international Simon Wiesenthal Centre wrote to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Director General Koichiro Matsuura, saying that Hosni had now ruled himself out as a possible successor to head the Paris-based body.
The letter to UNESCO from the Wiesenthal Center’s director for international relations Shimon Samuels charged that Hosni s comment was couched in the language and actions of Nazi Minister of Culture Josef Goebbels.
The letter said that the sting in this tail is that literary pyromaniac Farouk Hosni is considered a serious candidate to replace [Koichiro Matsuura] as Director-General of UNESCO.
In his defense, Hosni told AFP that he had only used a popular expression to prove something exists, – to be specific, Israeli books in Egyptian libraries.
A minister of culture cannot demand that a book be burnt, and that includes an Israeli book, he added, and pointed out he had spoken in favor of Israeli books being translated into Arabic during a televised debate on the subject.
Embracing the position of Egyptian intellectuals, who oppose any cultural normalization with Israel, Hosni said such links could only take place after a just and global peace in the Middle East.
We cannot dance with them, sing together or watch a piece of theatre when there are bloody attacks every day against the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, he said.
The Israeli ambassador told AFP: To come out against cultural normalization is one thing, but to exude hate which goes counter to good political dialogue is unacceptable.
I have informed the Egyptian foreign ministry of our astonishment at such a remark, which only revives the somber memories of recent history, he said.Hosni has responded by saying that I have nothing against the Jews, and by saying that he has worked to preserve the cultural heritage of Jews in Egypt by restoring synagogues which were in a deplorable state.
There are now fewer than 100 Jews in Egypt where 80,000 lived at the start of the 1950s.
Hosni, culture minister for the past 21 years and close to Mubarak, is slammed by Islamists in Egypt for being too liberal and also shunned by intellectuals hostile to the regime.
Several Arab and European states, including France, have expressed their support for Hosni s candidature to head UNESCO.
