UNESCO panel okays softened text blasting Israel over Jerusalem activity
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization’s World Heritage Council on Tuesday evening passed a resolution denouncing Israeli activity in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Ten countries voted in favor of the text, which was significantly softer than previous resolutions. Only three member states — Jamaica, the Philippines and Burkina Faso — opposed the resolution, while eight abstained.
The Jordanian-sponsored resolution on the “Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls” called Israel “the occupying power,” and reaffirmed previous UN resolutions denying the country’s claims to East Jerusalem. Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem has never been recognized by the international community.
The body “regrets the failure of the Israeli occupying authorities to cease the persistent excavations, tunneling, works, projects and other illegal practices in East Jerusalem, particularly in and around the Old City of Jerusalem, which are illegal under international law,” the measure read.
However, Decision 41 COM 7A.36 stressed “the importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls for the three monotheistic religions,” language not found in last year’s text. It also did not refer to the Temple Mount compound solely by its Muslim names, “Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif,” as the 2016 resolution did, defining it only as “a Muslim holy site of worship.”
Despite the text lacking the bite of previous resolutions passed by the body, it was still met with angry denunciations by Israeli officials.
UN Ambassador Haley Slams Upcoming UNESCO Hebron Vote as ‘Wasted Symbolic Action,’ Urges Focus on ‘Precious Sites Under Real Threat of Destruction’
The US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, has strongly criticized the Palestinian campaign for the Tomb of the Patriarchs and the Old City in the West Bank town of Hebron to be recognized as “Endangered World Heritage Sites” by UNESCO, the UN’s global cultural agency.UNESCO’s Cave of the Patriarchs measure is latest ‘narrative warfare’ against Israel
The Palestinian proposal is scheduled to be put to a vote on Friday, during the 41st meeting of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee which began last Sunday in the Polish city of Krakow.
In a letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova – a copy of which was seen by The Algemeiner – Haley stated the Tomb of Patriarchs, which is “sacred to three faiths, is under no immediate threat.” To designate it as an “endangered” site, Haley said, risks “undermining the seriousness such an assessment by UNESCO should have.”
“Many precious sites – from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Libya to Iraq to Syria – are under real and imminent threat of destruction today,” Haley said.”They urgently demand UNESCO’s full and immediate attention, which should not be wasted on this sort of symbolic action.”
A key holy site for the Jewish faith under Israeli control since 1967, the Tomb of the Patriarchs – known as the Machpelah Cave in Hebrew – houses the tombs of Abraham and his wife Sarah, their son Isaac, and their grandson Jacob and his wife Leah.
An upcoming vote by the United Nations cultural body UNESCO on whether to declare Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs as an endangered Palestinian heritage site is the latest example of “narrative warfare” against Israel and Jews, legal experts say.Holocaust survivors urge Polish FM: Stop UNESCO Hebron vote
As part of an ongoing Palestinian-engineered diplomatic campaign, an “emergency resolution” UNESCO presented to its World Heritage Committee claims Israel is causing “irreversible negative effect on the integrity, authenticity and/or the distinctive character of the property,” which the resolution refers to not as the Cave of the Patriarchs, but as the Ibrahimi Mosque. The Hebron site is where the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah are believed to be buried.
The vote is tentatively scheduled to take place during UNESCO’s July 2-12 summit in Krakow, Poland.
“Anyone who comes to the Cave of the Patriarchs can see that the building is well-maintained, and open for members of all faiths to pray,” said Yishai Fleisher, international spokesman for the Jewish community of Hebron, who noted that the site’s largest room is reserved almost exclusively for use as a mosque by local Arabs.
Further, Fleisher explained that like the Western Wall, “the Cave of the Patriarchs monument was built by a Jewish king”—King Herod, more than 2,000 years ago.
“Suggesting first, that the site of the burial of the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs is a Palestinian heritage site, and then suggesting that the site is in danger, is a fraudulent interpretation of history. It is a classic case of the narrative warfare the Palestinians are waging on the Jewish people,” Fleisher, a trained lawyer, told JNS.org.
A group of 12 Holocaust survivors, who were born in Poland and now live in Israel, have sent an urgent letter to the Polish foreign minister, asking him to call on his government to thwart the UNESCO resolution seeking to declare Hebron's Old City as a Palestinian World Heritage Site.
Poland will host the 41st gathering of the World Heritage Committee in Kraków this week. During the gathering, the committee is expected to vote on the Palestinian draft resolution that would recognize the Cave of the Patriarchs—where the Biblical fathers and mothers of the Jewish nation are buried according to tradition—as a Muslim site.
A similar UNESCO resolution passed in 2015 recognizing Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem as a Muslim site under the sovereignty of the Palestinian Authority, while ignoring Jewish claims to the site. That resolution was followed by protests and strong condemnations from the State of Israel and the Jewish community worldwide.
Shurat HaDin, a legal NGO accompanying the survivors in their plea to Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski, described the move at the UN's Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as a "pitiful resolution that creates a Palestinian narrative that is a complete lie."
Shurat HaDin founder Nitsana Darshan-Leitner went on to say, "If this decision passes, it would be another desecration of the memory of the millions of Jews murdered on Polish soil, and I expect the government of Poland to prevent the vote."