Yair Lapid
Yair LapidFlash 90

The influential European newspapers Corriere della Sera (an Italian newspaper) and El Mundo (a Spanish newspaper), published an article by Yesh Atid party chairman Yair Lapid "How UNESCO Erases History."

Lapid criticized the countries that abstained on the UNESCO vote in which the organization denied the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. He also urged them to confront the truth.

"They should stand by history, the truth and the facts, or they would have to admit they have a problem with Jews. If they do not take a courageous stand, this will be another reminder of why Jews need to have a strong and independent state of their own."

Lapid compared Israel's situation to that of Spain. "Is Spain prepared to use the same principle to return Andalusia to the Muslims who originally named it? I know it sounds like I’m intentionally taking it to the absurd extreme, but why is it absurd when it comes to Europe and not when someone tries to deny not only Israel’s present, but also its past?"

In his article, Lapid refers to Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan's song "Forever Young," in which Dylan paraphrases a Jewish prayer from the Book of Numbers. "That prayer is the earliest scripture ever found. It was discovered carved into silver tablets from the days of the First Temple. They were found in a cave in Jerusalem, written in ancient Hebrew. Researchers dated them to around 600 BCE. Already then, Jerusalem was a vibrant Jewish city where life, trade, prayers and even disputes took place in Hebrew."

"Hebrew was also the language used by Jesus 600 years later when he entered Jerusalem riding a donkey." Lapid added.

Lapid said that UNESCO arbitrarily voted to rewrite history. "They don’t bother to explain the decision, but just arbitrarily decided that the Temple Mount and Western Wall Plaza, which lies next to it, belong to the Palestinians, while using only the Arabic names of the two places (despite the fact that the Al Aqsa Mosque was built on the ruins of the Jewish Temple some 1,300 years later)."

"UNESCO decided to wipe out the history as it really was for political reasons. Along the way, it wiped out its own integrity, its goals and any remaining faith and respect anyone may have had for the organization."

According to Lapid, the only explanation for UNESCO's decision is anti-Semitism. "The obsession of some UN organizations towards Israel is no secret. In the past decade, the UN Human Rights Council has passed 61 resolutions condemning human rights violations across the world, from the 400,000 murdered in Syria through Afghanistan to Iraq and other conflict zones in the world. In that same decade, the organization passed 67 resolutions condemning Israel. That isn’t a typographical error. The UN Human Rights Council has condemned Israel, a democracy that abides by international law and protects minority rights, more times than the rest of the world combined."

"Facts apparently don’t concern the various UN organizations. When you tell them the only logical explanation is anti-Semitism, they appear shocked and say it’s appalling that Israelis always use that argument. Really?"

Lapid accused UNESCO of being complicit in the murderous incitement of the Palestinians. "When young Palestinians who have already been fueled by incitement against Israel read a decision like this one by UNESCO, they become convinced that the conspiracy theories are true. The next stage is that they take a knife, a gun or a Molotov cocktail and carry out a terror attack. "