Israeli Knesset Speaker urges Vatican to fight UNESCO resolution

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein has asked the Vatican to stand up and defend the Jewish state against the latest ‘scandalous and completely unfounded’ anti-Semitic resolution, this time passed by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee.

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein on Wednesday condemned the latest United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) resolution which ignores Judaism’s connection to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, calling the motion “an outrageous and completely unfounded decision” which joins UNESCO`s previous resolutions which challenge “the Jewish religion and the Christian religion.”

The new resolution claims that Israel is damaging holy sites and the freedom of religion in Jerusalem.

Edelstein sent a letter following the controversial resolution to Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, in which he condemned UNESCO’s previous resolution on Jerusalem.

In the missive, he called the resolution “an assault on history” which is “deeply offensive to both Christianity and Judaism.”

“The denial of the historicity of the two Jerusalem Temples and the Temple Mount as recounted in both the Old and New Testaments is a terrible indictment of the international community when repeatedly adopted by an important UN body. The outrageous repudiation of the millennia-old bond between Judaism and its holiest shrines in Jerusalem is a blatant attempt to rewrite history,” he wrote.

UNESCO’s decision offends Christianity as well as Judaism and “the annals of both our religions cannot be erased by raised hands and counted votes.”

He said it was “high time” to ensure that the international community adopts another resolution that reaffirms Jerusalem as a holy city for the three monotheistic religions, a motion that declares Jerusalem “a city where the two Temples stood and from which the Word of G-d was first promulgated to humanity by our prophets.”

He called on the Vatican, “In the name of the Land and the People of the Bible,” to use “its best offices to prevent the recurrence of developments of this sort.”

Several countries have voiced opposition to the recent string of UNESCO motions denying the Jewish bond to Jerusalem, including the US, the Czech Republic, Italy and even UNESCO’s Director-General Irina Bokova.

By: Aryeh Savir, World Israel News

JerusalemTemple MountUNESCOVaticanYuli Edelstein