Netanyahu meets Mexican-Jewish diplomat fired for protesting UNESCO Jerusalem vote

JTA

Andrés Roemer Slomanski, embajador mexicano ante la Unesco. Foto: Benjamin Flores

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.”

“Finding time for a private conversation with the prime minister is a rare achievement for every ambassador. Despite this, I found it necessary to give up part of the time [allotted for my meeting] and asked the prime minister to meet and express our appreciation for Andrés’ courageous and moral step. And the meeting was both moving and riveting,” Shama-Hacohen said, according to Arutz Sheva.

In May, the Mexican-Jewish diplomat received the International Sephardic Leadership Award from the American Sephardic Federation.

“When confronted by the recent UNESCO resolution that sought to erase Jerusalem, Israel’s Jewish and Christian history, Ambassador Roemer knowingly risked his position to voice and vote his conscience,” read the federation’s announcement.

“While the resolution still passed, Ambassador Roemer did not forget Jerusalem and his moral courage convinced several countries, including his own, to seek to reverse the resolution’s ill-considered position against historical truth and the possibility of peace.”

For not following the instructions he had received from the Mexican government, he was fired a few days later.

US Government Mourns AMIA Bombing Victims, Investigator Alberto Nisman, on 23rd Anniversary of Iran-Perpetrated Atrocity

Ben Cohen

The aftermath of the bombing of the AMIA building in Buenos Aires, July 18, 1994. Photo: File.

The US State Department marked Tuesday’s 23rd anniversary of the July 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires with a statement highlighting Iran’s role in the atrocity and urging transparency in the investigation into the death of Alberto Nisman, the Argentine special prosecutor who exposed Tehran’s culpability for the attack.

“The United States shares the sorrow of the families of those who perished in the bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) building in 1994,” Heather Nauert, the spokesperson for the State Department, said. “For the past 23 years, we have joined the Argentine government and victims of this terrorist attack in seeking justice. We continue to believe that the Iranian government has a responsibility to cooperate fully with Argentine authorities in bringing the perpetrators to justice.”

Nauert then paid tribute to Nisman, who was found dead in his Buenos Aires apartment in January 2015, shortly before his planned public exposure of the collusion between Tehran and the former government of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in exonerating the Iranian and Hezbollah operatives responsible for the bombing.

“On this occasion, we also reflect upon the significant contributions of prosecutor Alberto Nisman in investigating the AMIA bombing, and note the importance of clarifying the circumstances of his tragic death,” Nauert said.

While the lack of judicial progress in the AMIA case has been a regular feature of annual State Department reports on Argentina, Tuesday’s statement from the State Department suggested that Iran’s continued harboring of the suspects in the bombing is another factor in the Trump administration’s growing impatience with the Tehran regime. Eighty-five people died and hundreds more were wounded when a truck packed with explosives rammed into the AMIA building in downtown Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994.

The AMIA anniversary was solemnly marked in Israel, by international Jewish organizations and by Argentina itself. In Buenos Aires, Argentine Cabinet Chief Marcos Peña told a gathering of parliamentarians hosted by the Latin American Jewish Congress that the Memorandum of Understanding between Kirchner and the Iranians signed in 2013 — which proposed a joint Argentine-Iranian investigation into the AMIA bombing — had been permanently consigned to history by the current government of President Mauricio Macri.

Referring to Nisman’s case, Peña said that “there must be no impunity. We need to know what happened and who is responsible for his death.” Over the last week, the Argentine press has once again been abuzz with reports that the leaders of the former government — including Kirchner and her foreign minister, Hector Timerman — will face criminal charges over Nisman’s death before the year is out.