George Orwell, call your office

George Orwell had a special connection with Barcelona. See, for example, the excerpt “Barcelona, 1936” from Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, or the 2002 essay “Beyond irony: The legacy of George Orwell in Barcelona.”
Last week the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and Unesco invited a group of experts to Barcelona to discuss contemporary anti-Semitism. We would have been fools to hold high expectations for the conclave, but Anne Bayefsky’s report for OpinionJournal is nevertheless disheartening: “Your tax dollars at work.” Bayefsky’s excellent reportage brings the Orwell connection to mind.