Following the decision by the UNESCO Executive Committee that the State of Israel is not the sovereign in Jerusalem, the Regavim Movement is currently calling for the return of the UN Jerusalem compound to the hands of the State of Israel.
At the beginning of the week, the State submitted a request to defer response to the petition, indicating that the Foreign Affairs Ministry had been in contact with various UN elements, asking to allow a visit by professionals from the State of Israel, legal owner of the compound.
The complaint filed by Regavim last month regards a series of serious construction violations committed by the UN in recent years, including concrete castings in the historic building, the construction of an illegal multi-story office building, storage hangars, and a pirate gas station that is also an environmental hazard.
After the liberation of Jerusalem, the Israeli government gave UNTSO, an UN arm, the right to use the area free of charge to supervise the cease-fire between Israel and its neighbors after the war.
The United Nations agencies UNTSO and UNSCO currently operate in the compound, alongside the office of UN envoy to the Middle East Nikolai Maldanov, who conducts blatant and hostile pro-Arab activity and which Defense Minister Liberman has proposed to boycott.
The UNESCO resolution adopted today by the organization, according to which the State of Israel is not the sovereign in Jerusalem, has, as expected, aroused great anger and strong reactions from Israel.
Regavim calls on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and cabinet ministers to refrain from belligerent statements and to inform the United Nations that Israel will reclaim the Armon Hanatziv compound in accordance with the 1967 agreement.
"There is no day more suitable than the Day of Independence to announce the removal of the anti-Semitic organization from Armon HaNetziv belonging to the State of Israel," Regavim says. "The UN has forgotten that it is in Jerusalem as a guest of the State of Israel, in property of the state. Once the guest starts behaving like the master of the house, it's a sign that it's time to find another tenant. That's how true independence looks," they added.