UN Doubles Down on Removing Jewish, Christian References to Temple Mount
That the United Nations World Heritage Committee is hostile to Israel’s connections to the Temple Mount almost goes without saying, but the body’s latest move can be viewed as nothing more than an attempt to “whitewash” Jewish and Christian ties to the holy site from history entirely.
According to The Times of Israel, the U.N. Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization panel voted with a large majority to accept a draft report regarding the Temple Mount in which it is only referred to by its Muslim names. The site of the First and Second temples in Jerusalem is considered the holiest site in all of Judaism.
The report states:
The resolution, which accuses Israel of various violations, echoed last week’s decision in referring to the Temple Mount compound solely by its Muslim names, “Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif,” and defined it only as “a Muslim holy site of worship.” As the site of the two Biblical temples, the mount is the holiest place in Judaism. But unlike last week’s resolution, the draft did not mention the importance of Jerusalem’s Old City for “the three monotheistic religions.”
“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, said after the vote.
The fate of the resolution would be no different from United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism with racism, he predicted, noting that that resolution was overturned 16 years after its adoption in 1975. Recalling that Israel’s ambassador to the UN at the time, Chaim Herzog, tore apart a copy of that resolution, he said that UNESCO’s resolution on Jerusalem belonged in the garbage bin of history.
“I have no intention of doing this today—not because of your dignity, or the dignity of this organization, but because it is not even worthy of the energy needed for tearing it apart,” the Israeli envoy said, before proceeding to lift up a black dustbin with the word “History” on it and place a copy of the text inside.
The final vote was 10-2 with eight abstentions. The nations voting in favor of the resolution, with the exception of Vietnam, were all Muslim-majority states. Committee chairwoman Lale Ulker of Turkey, had attempted to pass it by “concensus,” which could have been used to project a unanimous decision, but diplomats from Tanzania and Croatia objected.
