Egypt-Qatar Face Off in Bid for UNESCO Leadership

"The ongoing feud between Qatar and Egypt took on global dimensions as Cairo announced July 19 that it had selected a candidate to challenge Doha's pick for the next Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Cairo officially nominated Moushira Khattab, a former Minister of Family and Population at a festive cultural dialogue event held in the garden of the Egyptian Museum.

'UNESCO members will not be just choosing a director-general, they will be choosing a civilization,' said Khattab... 'Facing the Mediterranean and connected to Africa, Egypt has long served as a key crossroads of global civilizations,' Khattab told The Media Line. 'We have to admit that UNESCO has failed at its mission when we see the rise of religious extremism and xenophobia around the globe. From the Middle Ages onward, Egypt had a history of bringing together Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scientists and scholars and that is what UNESCO needs to do.'...

Current UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova's tenure has not been without its own controversy of matters of religion and politics in the Middle East...

UNESCO's World Heritage Committee was scheduled to consider an additional Palestinian-Jordanian resolution on "the Old City of Jerusalem and its walls" during a session scheduled for July 20 at its 10-day annual meeting in Istanbul, but the event was disbanded in the wake of the abortive Turkish coup..."