The Atrocious Scandal of the UNESCO Vote on Jerusalem

By Salim Mansur

• It was over the ruins of these sacred Jewish sites, left behind by the Romans, that Arab conquerors of Jerusalem in the seventh century built two mosques, the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa, to lay claim on the City of David for Islam.
• There can be no dispute about Jewish links with Jerusalem, and Jewish rights to their sacred sites that long pre-date the arrival of Arabs bearing Islam to the City of David. This latest effort by the UNESCO, however to deny the Jewish nature of Jerusalem is much more than a scandal; it is a Stalinist measure to airbrush history by an organization which, according to its own charter, is supposed to be devoted without prejudice to the preservation of historical records.
• There is precedent for such a resolution to nullify the recent UNESCO resolution on Jerusalem. In December 1991, the UN General Assembly voted to repeal the UN resolution passed in 1975 that declared, "Zionism is a form of racism."
• Muslim denial of the Jewish links to the City of David and their ancestral rights over Judea and Samaria, or Palestine, is ironically contrary to the Word of God in their own sacred scripture.
• Their claim on Jerusalem, or the holy land, on the basis of Islam is simply not found in the Quran. On the contrary, the Quran is explicit in addressing Jews as "children of Israel" and speaking of them, as in "Remember those blessings of Mine with which I graced you, and how I favoured you above all other people." (2:47)

In Rome, any present-day tourist can behold, on the ancient Arch of Titus, the engraved likeness of the Jewish candelabra (Menorah), which the Romans brought back from Jerusalem after ransacking the Jewish Temple. Pictured: Photo of a panel copy from the Arch of Titus, displayed in the Beth Hatefutsoth museum in Israel. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons/Sodabottle)

A resolution on "Occupied Palestine" this past October, at the 200th session of the Executive Board of the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in Paris, France, was orchestrated by Arab and Muslim member-states as another attempt to diminish Jewish links with Jerusalem. UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, despite Israel's opposition, adopted the resolution by a vote of ten countries in favour, two opposed, and eight abstentions.

In 1975, UNESCO was already an official supporter of the UN declaration that "Zionism equals racism." So it should come as no surprise that in October 2016, a UNESCO resolution pointedly ignored the Biblical Jewish connection to two of the faith's holiest sites in Jerusalem: the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, which pre-date Islam by hundreds of years.

Continue Reading Article