In yet another display of blatant anti-Semitism, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee this time voted in favor of a resolution denying the millennia-old Jewish connection to Jerusalem including the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Wednesday adopted another resolution denying the Jewish bond to Jerusalem, and specifically the Temple Mount and the Kotel, the Western Wall.
In a vote cast by secret ballot at the World Heritage Committee in Paris, 10 countries voted in favor of the motion, while two countries voted against and eight abstained. Jamaica was absent from the 21-country body.
The conservation report on the status of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls, proposed by Lebanon, Kuwait and Tunisia, accuses Israel of various violations and refers to the Temple Mount only by its Muslim names, the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Al-Haram Al-Sharif, and defined it singularly as “a Muslim holy site of worship,” while failing to mention the importance of Jerusalem to the three monotheistic religions.
The resolution calls for a return to the “historic status quo” on the Temple Mount, which it sees as favoring Muslims.
“This is yet another absurd resolution against the State of Israel, the Jewish people and historical truth,” Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO Carmel Shama-Hacohen charged after the vote.
Displaying a trash basket with the word “history” on it, Shama-Hacohen placed the resolution in the bin and said that this motion would eventually join other such anti-Israel resolutions adopted by the UN that were subsequently reversed or discarded.
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon condemned the resolution, pointing to the ludicrousness of the resolution. “The absurdity continues, and UNESCO has adopted yet another ridiculous decision that is completely disconnected from reality,” said Danon.
“UNESCO embarrassed itself by marching to the tune of the Palestinian pipers. All attempts to deny our heritage, distort history and disconnect the Jewish people from our capital and our homeland, are doomed to fail,” Danon added.
This vote follows a similar controversial one from last week which also denied that Jerusalem was Jewish or Christian, and referred to it only by its Islamic names, in blatant disregard of history, archaeology and plain common sense.
Prime Minister Netanyahu said on Tuesday of this vote that that even “the theater of the absurd” at the UN must have limits, and noted that it was important that “countries which respected both themselves and the truth” not support it. He added that it was not a political question, but one of historical facts.
This resolution elicited angry responses from Israel, several countries and even UNESCO’s Director-General Irina Bokova.
While the resolution itself has limited consequences, it is yet another battle in international arenas led by Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas and fought by the Palestinians against Israel’s existence.
This vote is the latest of several measures adopted at UNESCO over decades that Israel sees as evidence of ingrained anti-Israel bias within the UN, where Israel and its allies are far outnumbered by Arab and Muslim countries and their supporters.
By: Aryeh Savir, World Israel News