Netanyahu Meets Mexican Diplomat Who Resisted UNESCO Jerusalem Vote
Andres Roemer Image by Enlace Judio
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Mexico’s former UNESCO ambassador who was fired last year for walking out of a vote on an anti-Israel resolution effectively denying Jewish ties to Jerusalem.
Andres Roemer, who is Jewish, met with Netanyahu in Paris on Monday, just before the prime minister left for Hungary.
“Last year, I received many expressions of sympathy and support from the Jewish and also the Christian world, but today’s meeting was particularly touching for me,” Roemer said, according to a statement by Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, who organized the meeting, the Times of Israel reported.
In October, the Latin American diplomat risked his position by walking out of a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization vote at its headquarters in Paris — leaving his deputy to cast the country’s vote — in a personal protest against the UNESCO resolution denying Jewish ties to Jerusalem.
“I am at peace with what I did,” he said, according to Shama-Hacohen. “I did it not only as a Jew but also a person who believes that these votes do not have a place in an educational and cultural organization, and hurt us all.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
