News Releases 2025
A Report by Shimon Samuels and Alex Uberti
Paris, 18 December 2025
Over the past two decades, we have been monitoring Arab book fairs – from Casablanca to Cairo, Doha, Riyadh, Sharjah or Muscat – to find publishers who peddle antisemitic texts, thus contributing to the perpetuation of conspiracy theories against the Jews, and animosity towards Israel.
This year’s International Sharjah Book Fair (SIBF) decided to give its Best Arabic Publishing House Award to Jordanian Dar Al Ahlia Bookstore. The award was also reported by the Emirates News Agency WAM, and by Khaleej Times, the UAE's longest-running English language newspaper.
A Report by Shimon Samuels and Alex Uberti
Paris, 29 October 2025
For more than two decades, we have been monitoring several Arab book fairs across the Mediterranean and in the Middle East, as well as the biggest World book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany (FBM – Frankfurter BuchMesse), to identify texts and publishers that peddle hate, especially against the Jews. At the FBM, in compliance with German law and following our alerts, those texts that got through would be checked and confiscated by the local Hessen Police.
This year, we have found several books within the FBM that are to be considered problematic, mostly related to the conflict triggered by the 7 October 2023 terror attack against Israel. Since the responsibilities of Hamas and Palestinian terrorism have been promptly reversed against Israel and the Jews, antisemitism worldwide has skyrocketed, on campus as in the media... It is no surprise that the publishing industry is affected.
“University of Mosul must NOT be a Vector of Jew-Hatred”
Paris, 3 October 2025
Madam Director-General,
UNESCO’s “Global Programmes for Education” have great impact. In one case, however, some good intentions seem to be soiled by fake propaganda.
The University of Mosul (UoM) is the second largest in Iraq. Its library had been destroyed during the period when ISIS ruled the town. Since 2018, under the “Revive the Spirit of Mosul” initiative, UNESCO undertook the worthy restoration of the Mosul University Library, with funds provided by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS).
by Shimon Samuels and Alex Uberti
Paris, 16 July 2025 (closing of the 47th WHC)
World Heritage Site
In 2017, the Palestinian Authority was given “Hebron/Al-Khalil old town” by UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee (WHC).
The WHC recognizes, in particular, “the architecture of the Mamluk period between 1250 and 1517. The centre of interest of the town was the site of Al-Ibrahimi Mosque /the Tomb of the Patriarchs, whose buildings are in a compound built in the 1st century C.E. to protect the tombs of the patriarch Abraham/Ibrahim and his family.”
Read more: Hebron, from Biblical Origins to the Denial of...
Paris, 9 July 2025
As for the past 22 years, Dr Shimon Samuels, Emeritus Director for International Relations of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, and Alex Uberti, independent researcher and Project Manager for CSW-Europe, are participating in the activities of the World Heritage Committee (WHC). This year’s 47th session is held in UNESCO’s Paris headquarters.
Since its accession to UNESCO in 2011, the “State of Palestine” has been campaigning in WHC sessions – in Mumbai, Riyadh, Manama, Cracow, Doha, Bonn, Phnom Penh, or St. Petersburg... – with the aim of appropriating Jewish and Christian heritage and historical sites, in order to validate its own narrative. So far, it has obtained the following:
Read more: The 47th World Heritage Committee – the ongoing...