The Israeli delegation to the UN was recently astonished to discover that a UN-sponsored Holocaust memorial program is devoting a conference to Israel's treatment of the Bedouin population of the Negev Desert as a story of "uprooting and confiscation."
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The conference is slated to take place approximately two months from now.
An invitation to the event says that a panel will "investigate the unique character of the Bedouin resistance, the history of forced urbanization [by Israel], and the situation in the unrecognized Bedouin villages."
The invitation, recently sent out by the UN's communications department, caused considerable outrage.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan reached out urgently to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, objecting to what he called the event's "desecration" of the memory of Holocaust victims.
Erdan told Guterres that the UN was sponsoring a "nauseating" event that desecrated the memory of the Holocaust and its victims, through "the same UN organization" whose duty it was to preserve and commemorate the memory of those victims.
Erdan demanded that the UN withdraw its sponsorship of the conference, and set up a committee of inquiry that will prevent the UN from taking part in similar events in the future. Erdan said he also wanted the UN to take action against officials involved in the conference.
In addition, Erdan said, using the UN's Holocaust education program in the context of genocide to promote attacks against Israel was "cynical and infuriating."
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