Meyer Habib, a Jewish member of the French Parliament, made a speech at the French National Assembly on Tuesday, expressing his disappointment with France's decision to vote with the majority at the United Nations, thereby agreeing to an interpretation of the Temple Mount that erases the site's Jewish history.
The vote was a call to "preserve the historical status quo at the Haram a-Sharif," the Muslim term for the Temple Mount, and 129 nations voted in favor.
"How could the country of rights for all men lend its support to this conspiracy to delegitimize the state of Israel?" Habib asked. "The Hebrew date today is the tenth of the month of Tevet, which is one of the three fast-days commemorating the destruction of our Holy Temple, 2500 years ago. I wish to remind you that even in the darkest days of our history, the Jewish People never forgot Jerusalem - not during the Inquisition, not during the pogroms, and not during the Holocaust. We always said: Leshanah haba'ah biYerushalayim," he stressed, saying the last three words ("next year in Jerusalem") in Hebrew.
"Mr. Prime Minister, I have a dream," Habib continued. "A dream that I will see France, like the United States, announce that Jerusalem is the united capital of the state of Israel. But if that does not happen, at least stop erasing the Jewish and Christian history of Jerusalem," he appealed.