Israel To UNESCO: Do What You Want, We're Leaving Anyway

Israel envoy to UNESCO: Do what you want, we’re leaving anyway

Israel’s top UN envoy blasted UNESCO’s attempt to water down its controversial bi-annual Jerusalem resolution, reaffirming that Israel planned to leave the organization at the end of the year.

Danny Danon spoke after the 58 members of UNESCO’s executive board in Paris hid language disavowing Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem in the lengthy annex to an otherwise short benign text called Resolution 28.

Danon said the statements in the resolution’s annexes are “further evidence, for anyone who did not understand why the United States and Israel withdrew from UNESCO.”

Previous UNESCO resolutions had ignored Jewish ties to its most holy site, the Temple Mount, known in Hebrew as Har Habayit, referring to it solely by its Arabic-Muslim name al-Haram al-Sharif.

But this resolution’s annex modified some of that tone, stating that while Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron “are an integral part of  the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the two tombs “are of religious significance for Judaism, Christianity and Islam.”

In addition, it affirmed the importance of the “Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls for the three monotheistic religions.”

The board gave its preliminary approval to that text on Wednesday, with a final vote likely to be held on Monday.

The idea of placing controversial statements about Israel in an annex was conceived by UNESCO director-general Audrey Azoulay with an eye to depoliticizing the organization.

She also hoped to sway Israel and the United States to rescind their decision to leave the organization at the end of the year.

The resolution’s annex allows for votes on controversial statements to be delayed to further meetings of the board, which gathers twice a year.

Applause broke out among board members when Resolution 28 and another one on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, called Resolution 29, were approved by consensus.

A similar compromise had been reached at the April Executive Board meeting. At the time, the Israeli and the Palestinian delegations accepted the annex compromise, with Jerusalem welcoming Azoulay’s efforts to downgrade the anti-Israeli tone of the agency.

It’s understood that the Israeli delegation at UNESCO in Paris accepted that language this time as well.

Still Israel believes that resolutions with such texts politicize UNESCO and should not come before the board altogether. 

Danon dismissed such watering down efforts as too little, too late, saying the resolution “proves that UNESCO is a body based on lies and biases, and is deliberately acting against us. The State of Israel will not be a member of an organization that is trying to rewrite history and willing to be manipulated by our enemies.”