Against the backdrop of the clear historical record, the recent UNESCO resolution treating Jerusalem as a purely Muslim municipality with no meaningful ties to either Judaism or Christianity seems plainly delusional.
To even contemplate a factual demonstration proving otherwise would bespeak a profound level of Jewish national insecurity. But the issue must be addressed.
The UNESCO resolution took to describing the holy sites of the Old City of Jerusalem exclusively by their Muslim names and proceeded to characterize Israel and Jews as interlopers whose mere presence constitute “provocative abuses that violate the sanctity and integrity” of the area.
There is much more here than meets the eye. For one thing, in the context of the widely anticipated post-election push by the Obama administration to support Arab efforts to have the Security Council prescribe Israel’s borders with the Palestinians, the UNESCO gambit may well be a trial balloon. Thus, while UNESCO is powerless to enforce its decisions and the Security Council is all powerful in enforcing its own, the Palestinian cause would benefit mightily should the image of a Jerusalem stripped of its Jewish past continue to gain traction.
For another, the UNESCO resolution seems of a piece with the tendency of third world countries, of which the majority of UNESCO members are, to try to make their voices heard through the General Assembly, which also has a large third world majority. Although the spread of nuclear weapons threatens to introduce a new military calculus, these nations have largely been fourth- and fifth-rate military powers and in any event the General Assembly has no enforcement powers. Seen in this light, erasing any Jewish connection to Jerusalem may be more part of a wish list than anything else. Even so, it is frightening that they believe they can legislate historical reality.
And we note that the Palestinian National Charter, posted on the website of the Palestinian Authority’s United Nations delegation, maintains that “the claims of historic and spiritual ties between Jews and Palestine are not in agreement with the facts of history or with the true basis of sound statehood.”
Indeed, at the Camp David summit in 2000, Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat insisted to President Bill Clinton, reportedly to Mr. Clinton’s absolute incredulity, that there had never been a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, something Mr. Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, has claimed ever since.
Perhaps critics of Israel should look right there for the reasons Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have gone nowhere.