Egyptian intellectuals have declared that the election of Bulgarian Irina Bokova as UNESCO Director over Egypt's candidate has been aided by "the Jewish Lobby".

Bulgaria's Bokova beat Egypt's Faruq Hosni with 31 vs. 27 votes for UNESCO's top job Tuesday night.

"For the first time the election of a director of this organization was politically motivated," said Mohammed Salmawi, Chair of the Egyptian Writers' Union, as quoted by BGNES.

"The Jewish Lobby has exerted an enormous pressure, it has taken certain comments of Egypt's Culture Minister, Faruq Hosni, out of context," Salmawi said regarding the Hosni's reported statements that he would burn books in Hebrew that he might find in libraries in Egypt.

"This is the first case of such severe polarization between the North and the South, and the Zionist movement has totally recruited the North. This is the first case that Europe has risen against the Arab World with such ferocity," said Gaber Asfour, head of the translation service at Egypt's Culture Ministry, as quoted by BGNES.

Hatar Abu Diab, a political science researcher at the Paris University is quoted as saying that "with this outcome, the radical camp has sealed the clash of civilizations".

Diab told the Egyptian television that "Arab, African and Third World states must see Bokova's election as a challenge that directly affects them."

In her short address after her election, Bokova has declared she did not believe in the clash of civilizations. Earlier, Israel's Foreign Ministry formally welcomed her election.

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