Several weeks go we spoke of “UNESCO’s Fictive Reality” in connection with that UN agency’s having issued a Palestinian-prompted resolution that treated Jerusalem as a purely Muslim municipality. It’s as if Jewish and Christian connections to the city never existed.
There is now news of a slightly different Palestinian tack in cleansing any Jewish connection to something palpably Jewish: The Palestinian Authority is reportedly preparing to demand that UNESCO pass a resolution calling on Israel to turn over the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Palestinians.
Of course the very texts of the scrolls confirm a fundamental historical Jewish connection to the land. But the Palestinians claim that since they were first found on land now considered over the “Green Line,” the Palestinians are the “owners” and entitled to them.
Their argument is somewhat convoluted and will doubtless be fleshed out when the Palestinians make their formal application to UNESCO. It seems clear, however, that the Palestinians are bent on using their instant majority at the UN and its popular agencies to manufacture a version of reality more supportive of their political narrative than the actual historical record.