Jerusalem (AFP)- Israel recalled its ambassador to UNESCO for consultations Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced, after a second resolution accused of denying the Jewish connection to Jerusalem.
The Israeli ambassador to the UN body, Carmel Shama Hacohen, told public radio that “we are studying the possibility of breaking all contact with UNESCO”.
Despite what an Israeli official called long efforts to get the resolution amended or dropped, the heritage committee, made up of 21 member states, adopted the text proposed by Kuwait, Lebanon and Tunisia.
The resolution refers throughout to the Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif religious complex, without using the Israeli name “Temple Mount,” according a copy seen by AFP.
The 14-hectare (35-acre) rectangular esplanade at the southeastern corner of the Old City is the third holiest site in Islam and the most holy in Judaism. More here.
Related reading: The First Temple – Solomon’s Temple
UNESCO approves new controversial resolution on Jerusalem
PARIS (AP)— The U.S. Ambassador to UNESCO condemned as “inflammatory” a resolution approved Wednesday by UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee on the status of conservation of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls — a document that Israel says denies Judaism’s deep ties to the holy site Temple Mount.
In Wednesday’s secret ballot, the international body agreed to retain the site on the list of endangered world heritage and criticized Israel for its continuous refusal to let the body’s experts access Jerusalem’s holy sites to determine their conservation status. The document refers to the Jerusalem site that Jews called Temple Mount only by its Arab name — a significant semantic decision also adopted by UNESCO’s Executive Board last week that triggered condemnation from Israel and its allies.
“This item should have been defeated … These politicized and one-sided resolutions are damaging the credibility of UNESCO,” U.S. Ambassador Crystal Nix Hines said in a statement to The Associated Press. “These resolutions are continuously one-sided and inflammatory.”
The resolution was passed by the World Heritage Committee’s 21 member countries. Ten countries voted for, two against, 8 abstained and one was absent. Neither Israel, the U.S. nor Palestine is on the World Heritage Committee.
Israel suspended ties with UNESCO earlier this month over a similar resolution.
Elias Sanbar, the Palestinian ambassador to UNESCO, fired back at those upset with the resolution, which was sponsored by his delegation.
“What Israel wants, in fact, is to put politics in religion. This is the most dangerous thing that is happening now in UNESCO,” Sanbar told the AP. “They are politicizing religion and this is very dangerous.”
The resolution is the latest of several measures at UNESCO over decades that Israelis see as evidence of ingrained anti-Israel bias within the United Nations, where Israel and its allies are far outnumbered by Arab countries and their supporters.
The site in Jerusalem has been on UNESCO’s endangered list since 1982.
UNESCO’s World Heritage Site list is known throughout the world for its work in highlighting sites of historic and cultural significance, and endangered global heritage.
Related reading: US lawmakers urge UNESCO panel to reject text erasing Jewish ties to Temple Mount
Senators, Congressmen call on World Heritage Committee to vote against ‘yet another attempt to rewrite history’
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It’s time to disband UNESCO
Rubin/AEI: On October 13, 2016, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), a body charged with protecting and defending culture and cultural heritage, voted on a resolution denying Jewish ties to the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. The good news, as UN Watch noted, is that the resolution passed with only a plurality 17 countries abstaining. Normally, anti-Israel resolutions pass with overwhelming majorities.
Still, the resolution is itself so toxic that it delegitimizes UNESCO and raises questions about its continued existence. In effect, UNESCO has become so polluted by political hate, that it has embraced a resolution that advances a counterfactual narrative completely at odds with the archaeological, cultural, and historical record. It is one thing to criticize Israel and Israeli politics, but it’s quite another to suggest that there is neither Jewish history nor legitimate ties to Jerusalem. That’s akin to saying Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was never a church or that Cordoba cathedral was never a mosque. In effect, rather than advance cultural preservation, UNESCO is laying the ground work for ethnic and sectarian cleansing.
Among the countries voting for the UNESCO resolution were China, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, and Mexico. In effect, they demonstrate how easy it is to abet hatred and anti-Semitism so long as the money coming from Arab states and Iran is right. Again, diplomatic opposition to Israeli policies is no excuse, as UNESCO is supposed to be a cultural institution. The abstainers, however —among them France, India, Argentina, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, Greece, and Italy — really are no better. After all, at issue is a clear matter of historical fact. Only six countries — the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, Lithuania and Estonia — opposed the resolution.
Organizations form for good reasons. Few foresaw how the UN Human Rights Commission (later the UN Human Rights Council) would transform itself into a body to launder and excuse the worst human rights violations. When the UN founded the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the organization genuinely hoped they could resettle Palestinian refugees in Arab countries within a few years and disband; its founders never would have believed UNRWA would become a mechanism to launder money for terrorists and hide their weaponry. UNESCO is simply the latest organization that has outlived its utility and now threatens more harm than good. The UN General Assembly and Security Council are valuable as places for countries to meet and discuss common problems, but outgoing UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has been far more interested in traveling and grandstanding than repairing the internal rot that infuses the organization over which he presides.
Already, some UN diplomats are scrambling to paper over the UNESCO resolution and, feeding from the trough of bloated UN salaries, why shouldn’t they? But sometimes, when gangrene sets in, the best recourse is amputation. It’s time to let UNESCO fade into the dustbin of history and allow a new organization — perhaps one less beholden to politics and therefore outside the formal mechanisms of the UN — assume the responsibility to protect cultural heritage.
