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Israel summons Swedish envoy over anti-Israel UNESCO vote on Jerusalem

The ambassador of Sweden, the only Western country to vote in favor of a UNESCO resolution rejecting Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, was summoned by Israel’s Foreign Ministry. 

The Israeli Foreign Ministry has summoned Swedish Ambassador to Israel Carl Magnus Nesser on Wednesday, a day after his country voted in favor of a resolution passed by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) that rejected Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem.

Sweden was the only Western country to support the resolution; the others either abstained or voted against it. France, Spain, Slovenia and Estonia were included among the 23 abstentions. Albania, an eastern European country whose citizens are mostly Muslim, also abstained.

The United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Lithuania and Greece voted against the resolution.

Countries that voted in favor, besides Sweden, included Russia, China, Brazil, South Africa, Vietnam and most of the Muslim member states of UNESCO’s executive board.

The UNESCO resolution declared that “all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, which have altered or purport to alter the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and in particular the ‘basic law’ on Jerusalem, are null and void and must be rescinded forthwith.”

Israel’s “Basic Law” on Jerusalem, passed in 1980, not only declares the Jerusalem as the “complete and united” capital of Israel, but also stresses that “the Holy Places shall be protected from desecration and any other violation and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings towards those places.”

By: Jonathan Benedek, World Israel News