“Jewish People have no connection to the Western Wall” – UNESCO
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has slammed a UNESCO decision claiming the Jewish People have no connection to the Temple Mount or the Western Wall.
NSW Premier Mike Baird took time out to visit the Kotel otherwise known as the Western Wall in Jerusalem
Benjamin Netanyahu said: “The UNESCO theater of the absurd continues.
Today that organization adopted another delusional decision that states that the Jewish People
Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the international media. Photo: Amos Ben Gershon/GPO
Even if they do not read the Bible, I would suggest that UNESCO members visit the Arch of Titus in Rome. The Arch shows what the Romans brought back to Rome after they destroyed and looted the Second Temple on the Temple Mount 2,000 years ago. There, engraved on the Arch of Titus, is the seven-branched menorah that is the symbol of the Jewish People, and today is the symbol of the State of Israel.
Soon, UNESCO will decide that Emperor Titus engaged in Zionist propaganda.
To say that Israel has no connection to the Temple Mount is like saying that China has no connection to the Great Wall of China or that Egypt has no connection to the pyramids. With this absurd decision, UNESCO has lost the modicum of legitimacy it had left.
But I believe that historical truth is stronger and that truth will prevail. And today we are dealing with the truth.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Hotovely’s responded regarding to the decision of UNESCO’s Executive Board: “The Executive Board of UNESCO has disgraced its international mandate in this politicized and distorted resolution.
The fact that more states abstained than supported the resolution underscores the deep reservations of many states with regard to this shameful resolution. The countries that supported this resolution have lent their voice to the lie propagated by the Palestinians that the Temple Mount is an exclusively Islamic site. This falsification of history is an affront to the ancient Jewish and Christian connections to Jerusalem.”
Israel’s Minister of Education Naftali Bennett and also president of the Israel National Commission for UNESCO has written to UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova saying: “I am extremely troubled by the motion to Islamize the Temple Mount and erase the millennia- old Jewish ties to the site, and urge you to remove the item from the agenda of the 200th session of the Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
The core role of UNESCO is to educate people around the globe so as to promote a lasting peace. Not only does this resolution fail to promote coexistence and understanding; it hurts the chance of educating towards the acceptance of the other.
UNESCO is obligated to teach facts, not rewrite history. In this case, thousands of years of tradition, combined with archeological evidence, paints a clear picture. Two Jewish temples stood on the site centuries before Islam was introduced to the world . Relics from the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE are abundant – including engravings on the Arch of Titus, erected by the Romans to commemorate their pillaging of Judea. Coins, inscriptions in stone, seals and other artifacts – as well as the descriptions of Greek and Roman historians – all prove Temple Mount has been the focal point of Jewish tradition for thousands of years. For the second time this year, UNESCO is voting to deny history in order to placate and accommodate the anti-Israel – if not antisemitic – motions put forward by Arab and Muslim states. Ignoring Jewish ties to Temple Mount is blatant history denial.
Over the past few years terrorists belonging to the Islamic State have looted, vandalized and destroyed UNESCO heritage sites defined by them as ‘un-Muslim’. Director-General Bokova has called these actions “cultural cleansing,” noting they were intended at depriving people of their “knowledge, identity and history”.
The Temple Mount, like the rest of Jerusalem, is holy to Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Any resolution specifying the Temple Mount as holy only to Muslims actively denies all Christians and Jews around the world their knowledge, identity and history. UNESCO must protect religious sites, not only from violent terror, but also in the face of diplomatic terror.
I urge UNESCO to remember it has the crucial role of preserving diverse cultural heritage around the world. It was never asked to deny history, and I truly hope it distances itself from this preposterous motion .
In Australia, President Danny Lamm said: “I was outraged to learn that UNESCO, the cultural body of the United Nations, has passed a resolution overnight which essentially denies the Jewish character of Jerusalem and in particular the Temple Mount.
What a shameful and disappointing day, yet another stain on the United Nations which has veered so far away from the foundations upon which it was built.
Perhaps UNESCO will next pronounce the world to be flat after all.
When the Palestinians lobbied to change their status at the UN, the fear was that they would use it to gain entry into organisations such as UNESCO, allowing for resolutions such as these to be passed.
It is disappointing that 24 countries shamed themselves by playing along with this charade. Iran, Lebanon and Qatar who all voted in favour of the motion are certainly not the countries that we in the free and democratic world are aspiring to be but I was surprised with some of the other countries that voted for like Mexico and Brazil which have large Roman Catholic populations and therefore took part in this subterfuge of their own religious tenets.
As for France, Sweden and Greece which were among the many who abstained, it is shameful that they would choose to deny the history of the region by submitting that they do not know how to respond to vicious lies about the past.
Jerusalem is and always has been the beating heart of the Jewish people. To deny Jerusalem as a part of the Jewish narrative is to suggest that the body does not need the heart in order to continue breathing.
This attempt to rewrite the history books into a work of fiction must be blocked. The truth must prevail.”
ADC Chairman, Dr Dvir Abramovich, added: “This antisemitic and anti-Israel resolution is an outrageous and cynical attack on Israel and the Jewish people, and peddles a false narrative which denies three thousand years of Jewish history and Israel’s irrefutable and permanent connection to these holy sites. By engaging in such immoral historical revisionism, UNESCO is further stoking the flames of division in Jerusalem that have led to murderous terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians by individuals who have been fed a steady diet of lies and incitement. We remind UNESCO that Israel has always acknowledged the historical ties between Islam and Muslim holy sites in Israel and has ensured that freedom of worship is protected.
By now, it’s clear that instead of harnessing its efforts and energies to foster respect, trust and dialogue in the region, UNESCO has become an enabling vehicle for the Palestinian Authority’s political and hypocritical assault on Judaism’s age-old cultural heritage, and in doing so has irreparably damaged its reputation and integrity. We thank the various countries that voted against the resolution, including the United States, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, and express our disappointment at the twenty-six countries that abstained, including eight European countries.”
Not only far left NiF supports the resolution do does JCCV affiliate
AJDS see post from Stillman .
This latest absurd decision by UNESCO could be laughed at if it were not so serious in its intent. That countries such as France and Sweden abstained from the vote is a sign of their inherent weakness to make a stand, or is it instead their inherent anti-Semitism? France has always had a strong stain of anti-Semitism marring its so-called ethos of Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, and Sweden has joined the ranks in more modern times.
Shame on UNESCO, that poor excuse for a United Nations organisation, and shame on the Palestinians for their desperate lies and hypocrisy.
I wonder why Israel is still a member of this ridiculous, powerless organisation called the UN. What does this membership give Israel except of endless humiliation?
Taiwan has been doing very well since it was expelled from the UN in the 1970s. The leaders of Israel should keep that in mind.
Three points to note:
1) Apart from displaying revisionist history in support of a mohammedan jihadi lie, the Christian members of UNESCO are denying their own heritage.
2) UNESCO’s motion is reminiscent of Nazi denial of Jewish contributions to German culture
3) Our local leaders have failed to bring this distortion of history and abandonment of principles to the attention of our communities and they have failed to organise demonstrations in from of local UNESCO offices.
We saw the spectacle of leftist Jews turning not just against Israel but against the core of Judaism itself.
(This is a phenomenon seen in other historical cases – Jews who assisted Stalin attack Jewish practice in the Soviet Union, even Jews who worked with the Nazis in Germany.)
NIF gives money to B’tselem which gave testimony at the UNESCO to support the motion that denies Jewish connection to the Kotel and the Temple Mount. NIF funding enemies of Israel and enemies of Jews.
There is little else that is as dangerous as an historically ignorant anti Semite. Presumably UNESCO will suggest that the Jews manufactured all the archeological evidence that has been found over the last several millenia. How very clever we are.