The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Wednesday condemned the UNESCO World Heritage Committee over its passing of yet another resolution seeking to erase the Jewish connection to Jerusalem and the holy sites.
The resolution, entitled “Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls,” also included a long litany of biased accusations against Israel. The resolution was voted on and approved by secret ballot, with 10 voting in favor, eight opposed, two abstentions and one delegate, from Jamaica, absent.
It was the second anti-Israel resolution passed by UNESCO in recent weeks. On October 13, UNESCO’s Executive Board passed a similar resolution on Jerusalem.
Marvin D. Nathan, ADL National Chair, and Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO said in a statement, “Once again, a UNESCO body has made itself complicit with a perverse Palestinian campaign to manufacture a history that does not include Jews in the Holy Land.
“Charged with protecting and implementing the World Heritage Convention, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee has endorsed a false depiction of one of the world’s most ancient holy sites. To ignore or deny the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount is to ignore or deny what makes Jerusalem so holy and resonant for the world, including the Christian community,” they added.
“It is important to note,” continued Nathan and Greenblatt, “that 11 out of 21 member states did not vote in favor of this resolution, either through opposition, abstention or their absence. We further note the important statements of past weeks by international leaders who have opposed these resolutions, including UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.”
On October 20, ADL wrote to members of the World Heritage Committee, calling on them to vote against “this highly political and dangerous degradation of the Jewish connection to Jerusalem.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu recalled Israel's ambassador to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, in an unprecedented move that has never been taken against any other UN body before.
Netanyahu confirmed the move during an event at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya.
"The theater of the absurd continues, and I have decided to summon to Israel for consultations our ambassador to UNESCO. We will decide what do, what our next steps vis-à-vis the organization will be,” he said.