Fury as Unesco airbrushes Jews from history
THE EXECUTIVE Board of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Culutral Organisation (Unesco) voted 24-6 last week to approve a resolution condemning Israel for its activities in and aroundtheTempleMountinJerusalem.
The resolution omitted the Jewish history of Israel’s capital and referred throughouttoTempleMountasAl-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif.
The Western Wall, the last standing remnant of the Second Temple, was given its Islamic name, Al-Buraq Plaza, with “Western Wall Plaza” added in inverted commas.
The Israeli government reacted in anger to the resolution, with Education Minister Naftali Bennett suspending Israel’s membership of Unesco.
However, Israeli government officials noted with satisfaction ‘Theatre of the absurd’: Bibi that 26 nations abstained, and that no EU members — including France, which had voted in favour of a similar resolution earlier this year — voted for it. The six nations voting against were the UK, the US, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Estonia. The move by the UN agency — whose motto is “building peace in the minds of men and men” — to airbrush Jews from history not only contradicted the accepted archaeology of Jerusalem, it also contradicted the Christian narrative of Jesus Christ. TheresolutionalsocondemnedIsraeli plans to build a second Kotel plaza that will serve pluralistic streams of Judaism, and made no mention of the work carried out by the Muslim Waqf on Temple Mount to destroy evidence of the Jewish presence there. The resolution was part of a diplomatic war being waged against Israel by the Palestinian Authority and a sixyear campaign by the PA and Arab countries to use Unesco as a forum for denying the Jewish history of Temple Mount.
Benjamin Netanyahu described the vote as “the absurd theatre of Unesco” and suggested that its members should visit the 2,000 year-old Arch of Titus in Rome, which depicts the looting of the Jewish Temple by the Romans.
Unesco Director-General Irina Bokova issued a highly irregular statement denouncing the resolution.
More than half of the nations voting in favour had Muslim majorities, while most of the rest were allies of Russia and China, which also voted in favour.
Following the uproar, Mexico and Brazil indicated that they were retreating from their votes in favour of the resolution. Mexico initially asked for a re-vote, but settled for a re-statement of its position.
UNESCO may be the most anti-Israel of all UN agencies. In a typical year, the organisation’s legislative bodies will condemn Israel ten or more times, with no criticism adopted for any other country in the world. For example:
In 2009, Unesco adopted ten decisions against Israel (eight at the 181st and 182nd sessions of the Executive Board, and two at the 35th General Conference).
In 2010, Unesco adopted ten decisions against Israel at the 184th and 185th sessions of the Executive board.
In 2011, Unesco again adopted ten decisions against Israel at the 186th and 187th sessions of the Executive Board and two resolutions against Israel at the 36th session of the General Conference. During this period, an examination of all Unesco Executive Board decisions and Unesco General Conference resolutions by monitoring group UN Watch showed that not one other country in the world was censured even once.