{Originally posted to the Gatestone Institute website}

On April 11, 2016, the Executive Board of UNESCO adopted a resolution called “Occupied Palestine.” The title immediately exposes it as a biased document. That is not surprising. All the texts adopted by UNESCO concerning the Middle East are biased.

However, those who read it carefully can see that a further step was taken.

UNESCO’s resolution is not only biased: it is negationist. All traces of Jewish presence in Jerusalem and Judea in ancient times are eliminated at the stroke of a pen. The Temple Mount is never mentioned. It is only called by the name al-Aqsa Mosque / Haram al Sharif. The name “Western Wall” is placed between quotation marks, to indicate that it is an invalid name: Al Buraq Wall is used without quotation marks. The graves of Jewish cemeteries are described as “Jewish fake graves.”

It is a radical anti-Semitic resolution: denying historical fact, claiming that what exists does not, presenting the history of Judaism and the Jews as lies. Accusing Jews of “planting Jewish fake graves” is the lie. It is saying that Judaism is a sham and Jews are liars and falsifiers.

The document is absolutely anti-historical, anti-fact and “anti-Zionist”: it tries unambiguously to “prove” that Israel was founded on an imposture and has no reason to exist. The document constantly describes Israel as the “occupying power” and presents it as a predatory and arbitrary country.

Voting for such a text means would endorsing historical negationism, radical anti-Semitism, and absolute “anti-Zionism”.

Correctly deciphering the meaning of the resolution and its implications, the representatives of six Western countries — the United States, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom — voted no.

Representatives of other Western countries — France, Spain, Sweden, Slovenia — accepted the text and voted yes.

The resolution was presented with the support of several Muslim countries — some often described as “moderate”: Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco.

The text was written by Palestinian Authority (PA) “experts.” Since 2011, the Palestinian Authority has had a seat at UNESCO under the name “State of Palestine.”

The Israeli government immediately expressed its anger. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “anyone, let alone an organization tasked with preserving history, could deny this link which spans thousands of years.”

A petition was circulated by Stand With Us and the International Legal Forum, demanding that UNESCO change its attitude and remains “true to its founding principles.”

The anger of Israel’s government and indignation of others other is legitimate. The petition is fully justified.

However, expecting that UNESCO will change its attitude is illusory. Expecting that UNESCO will remain true to its founding principles is hoping for something that will not happen. UNESCO long ago abandoned its founding principles.

UNESCO is a branch of the United Nations, and the UN is an organization where democracies are in the minority, surrounded by a huge majority of dictatorships and authoritarian regimes imbued with hatred toward the West.[1] Israel is virtually the only country designated as guilty of violating human rights by the so-called Human Rights Council, and where, in 2009, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was welcomed as a hero.

In October, 2015, UNESCO had already started down path it follows today. It defined Rachel’s Tomb as the Bilal bin Rabah Mosque and the Cave of the Patriarchs as the Ibrahimi Mosque, and declared them “Palestinian sites.”

What is worrisome is that only six Western countries were ready to reject a totally poisonous, fraudulent resolution.

The Western countries that voted for the resolution evidently approve of its contents. These countries have lost all legitimacy to claim they want peace in the Middle East. By approving the resolution, they show they are at war: against Judaism, Jews and Israel. One of them, France, claims it will hold a meeting to revive the “peace process”: in this context, the claim is grotesque.

The fact that a group of Muslim countries, often described as “moderate,” supported the resolution can only lead to the question: How can a country that supports such a document be described as “moderate?”

That Palestinian Authority “experts” have written such a resolution should be sufficient to show that the PA is not “moderate.” It clearly has no intention at all of creating a State alongside Israel; instead, as its leaders often openly admit, its plan is that Israel has to be demonized, crushed and replaced.

The underlying problem is that this negationism, anti-Semitism and “anti-Zionism” are deeply rooted in both Europe and Islam.

The Quran says Jews and Christians (“Crusaders”) have falsified their sacred books, and the history of Judaism and the Jewish people is false. Muslim tradition says that Muhammad ascended to heaven from al Aqsa, and that the Al Buraq Wall is the wall where he attached the winged creature on which he flew to heaven. No room is left for the Temple Mount or the Western Wall, even though they were there, with countless archeological artifacts, for more than a thousand years before Muhammad was even born.

Muslim tradition also says that Jews, as disbelievers, are condemned to the humiliating status of dhimmi,[2] and that all territories conquered by Islam have to remain Muslim forever.[3] Muslim tradition cannot accept a country ruled by Jews or Christians on land that was once conquered by Islam — whether Israel, formerly part of the Ottoman Empire, or large swaths of Portugal and Spain.

The resolution adopted by the Executive Board of UNESCO on April 11 is “Islamically correct.” “Moderate” Muslim countries cannot contradict the Quran and Muslim tradition without risking being accused of irtidad (apostasy).[4] Palestinian Authority “experts” are being true to the Quran and to Muslim tradition.

Western countries that approved the resolution showed their submission and dhimmitude to “Islamic correctness.” Dhimmis, in Islamic history, are second class, “tolerated” citizens, who are subjected to special laws which remind them of their inferiority as well as a tax, the jizya, to purchase “protection” for their homes, possessions and lives.[5]

Countries that rejected the resolution would be considered insubordinate.

Refusing such a resolution is not enough. It is about time to ask the Muslim world to leave behind its heavy load of noxious traditions, blackmail threats and violence.

It is also time to do more.

Under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the United States left UNESCO in 1984, because UNESCO was obviously subservient to the Soviet Union, and was serving interests contrary to those of freedom, liberty and Western values.

The United States returned to UNESCO in 2003. In 2011, when the Palestinian Authority was admitted to UNESCO, the U.S. froze its financial contribution.

The United States badly needs to leave UNESCO again. UNESCO is obviously subservient to “Islamic correctness,” and serving interests contrary to those of freedom, liberty and Western values. Eighty years ago, negationism and anti-Semitism led to the Holocaust. It is urgent to say, “Enough.”

[1] Dore Gold, Tower of Babble: How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos, Crown Forum, 2005.

[2] Bat Ye’or, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2001.

[3] Robert Spencer, Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions about the World’s Fastest-Growing Faith, Encounter Books, 2003.

[4] Yohanan Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 2006.

[5] Bat Ye’or, op. cit.

Shai ben-Takoa laments France’s need to order Jews around. He also compares Holocaust denial with the abomination of the French-supported UNESCO decision that tried to Islamize historical Jewish sites in Jerusalem and offers a suggestion for what the UK should tell its Muslim population.

Phantom Nation 16May2016 – PODCAST

In recognition of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Laurie Cardoza-Moore, UN Special Envoy for the World Council of Independent Christian Churchs (WCICC) and President of Proclaiming Justice to The Nations (PJTN), attended meetings at the United Nations to condemn UNESCO’s effort to deny the historic, cultural and religious connection between the Jewish people and the Temple Mount.

The WCICC sponsors and promote meetings at the UN with countries and organizations that support Israel. The group represents more than 40 million Evangelical Christians worldwide, who, together with more than 13,000 global PJTN Watchmen are calling on UNESCO to condemn the strategic and deliberate destruction of ancient artifacts buried beneath the Temple Mount. This destruction has been carried out by the Islamic Waqf for over a decade now, in an attempt to physically eradicate and deny Jewish history connected to the holiest site in Judaism and Christianity.

This message is particularly important on Holocaust Remembrance Day, argues Cardoza-Moore, because “we cannot afford to stand by as Jewish history is publicly denied by an organization of the United Nations. Denying the Jewish people’s connection to the Temple Mount is tantamount to denying the existence of the Jewish people and is therefore even more grave than Holocaust Denial.”

Part of UNESCO’s mission is to promote and educate about religious tolerance, says Cardoza-Moore, noting that “with it’s denial of the Jewish connection to Jerusalem and its holy sites, UNESCO harms any prospect of peace and vicariously supports a radical ideology that denies the Jewish connection to the land of Israel and its holy sites.”

“We recognize UNESCO’s responsibility to promote culture and religious diversity by respecting the heritage of all nations,” she says, “Therefore, we call upon UNESCO to recognize the deep historic and religious Jewish connection as well.”

According to Cardoza-Moore, “Christians recognize the historic Jewish connection to Jerusalem, the Temple Mount and all of the ancient biblical sites in Israel. Christians also recognize that if we do not defend Israel’s biblical and historic connection to the Land, Christians will ultimately lose their historic connection as well. We are calling on all Christians to contact UNESCO and condemn this attempt to re-write biblical history and replace it with political propaganda.”

Cardoza-Moore concludes that “with the rise of global, genocidal anti-Semitism, as well as the global push to boycott, divest and sanction Israel, on this Yom HaShoah, as the world remembers one of the most horrific events in modern history, Christians, Jews and people of conscience must commit to make a stand and say never again.”

Director of the Temple Institute Rabbi Chaim Richman said the Netanyahu government policies regarding the Temple Mount have led to last week’s UNESCO’s resolution which ignores any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

Calling the resolution “another politically motivated act of revisionist history, obscene even by the standards of this morally bankrupt organization,” Richman announced that “UNESCO’s heinous resolution was not born in a vacuum but is a direct result of Israel’s ambivalent, nebulous policy towards the Temple Mount. We call upon Jews to ascend in purity and with proper halakhic guidance to the Temple Mount and to exercise their right to pray openly at the site from where the Divine Presence never departed, the location of the Holy Temple,” Richman said.

“Judaism was founded over 3500 years ago; Islam dates to the seventh century,” Richman noted, adding, “The resolution flies in the face of both the Bible–a bedrock of civilization, archaeological evidence, and scholarship. It also stands in denial of Islam itself, and the official statements of the ‘Supreme Moslem Council (sic),’ the Muslim Waqf which administers the Temple Mount. In the English-language booklet ‘A Brief Guide to Al-Haram Al Sharif’ published by the Waqf in Jerusalem in 1924, it states: ‘Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot according to the universal belief, on which ‘David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings’ (II Samuel 24:25).”

According to Richman, UNESCO’s “perversion of history is not only a deliberate degradation of the Jewish people, but an insult to all people of intelligence – and all people of faith. It is the latest of the United Nations’ calculated moves aimed at denying the Jewish people’s very right to exist. Wiping out a people’s past is the best way to ensure that they have no future. Thus the Muslim Waqf has been systematically destroying tons of archaeological evidence dating from the Second and First Temples – with no protest from UNESCO.”

There is a proper response to UNESCO’s most astonishing expression of anti-Semitism to date, Richmean said, “On the eve of Passover, the Festival of Freedom, we call upon the Israeli government to exercise full sovereignty over the Temple Mount, and grant freedom of religious expression to non-Muslims at the Temple Mount (in accordance with basic human and civil rights enshrined in Israeli law) so that Israel and all of humanity will finally experience true freedom.”

The executive board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Friday denied Israel’s claim to the Temple Mount and Western Wall.

Meeting in Paris, the organization ignored the Jewish connection to Jerusalem sites in a resolution that passed with 33 votes in favor, six against, and 17 abstained, and referenced only the Al-Aksa Mosque and the Al-Haram Al-Sharif (Temple Mount). The Western Wall area was referenced as the Al-Buraq Plaza. Last year UNESCO refused to reclassify the Wall as a Muslim site.

France, Spain, Sweden, Russia and Slovenia were among the non-Arab nations who supported the resolution. Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States objected.

The resolution accused Israel of planting “fake Jewish graves” in eastern Jerusalem. This claim is especially enraging, since the old Jewish cemetery on Mount Olives was desecrated by the Jordanians before 1967, with its tombstones being used to pave roads.

Israeli ambassador to UNESCO Carmel Shama released a statement in response saying, “Even if UNESCO passes dozens of resolutions, and decides to continue passing thousands more, Jerusalem will always remain as part of the capital of Israel and the Jewish people.” Shama added, “As you continue on this path of incitement, lies and terror you will be sending UNESCO down a path towards irrelevance.”

In Palmyra’s ancient Temple of Bel, conquering Syrian soldiers found ISIS terrorists buried human sacrifices and land mines alike.

The site was recaptured from the Da’esh (ISIS) terror group a week ago by the Syrian military backed by Russian forces. Da’esh had seized control over the UNESCO heritage site in May 2015.

Forty-two victims of the bloodthirsty faith of Da’esh (ISIS), of whom 24 were civilians and three were children, were found Friday in a mass grave at the site, AFP reported. All had been beheaded or shot to death.

The news agency quoted a military source who said the soldiers “uncovered a mass grave of officers, soldiers, members of the popular committees (pro-regime militia) and their relatives.” At least 280 people were murdered by Da’esh during the time the terror group held the site, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The ruins of the ancient city were also honeycombed with land mines as well, according to a Reuters reporter who quoted a Syrian officer, in hopes of creating an even larger mass grave.

Thousands of mines were rigged in the main streets and side roads of Palmyra, weighing up to 50 kg, and planned to detonate simultaneously as conquering forces moved in.

“All the government buildings are rigged in a network connected to the Da’esh leadership headquarters,” the Syrian officer said. “The idea was that as we enter it would all go off at once, not just bomb by bomb. And there are a really huge number of bombs.”

More than 3,000 of the roadside bombs and land mines have already been defused since the site was retaken, according to the report. He did not explain why the explosives did not detonate.

Iran’s Supreme Leader is once again working hard to incite the haters of the world against global Jewry.

On the day the United Nations marked for commemoration of the world’s worst genocide, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei uploaded a three-minute, English-subtitled video denying the Holocaust to his website called “Are the Dark Ages Over?”

The film features audio of a March 2014 speech during which Khamenei claimed that “No one is European countries dares to speak about the Holocaust, while it is not clear whether the core of this matter is reality or not.

“Even if it is reality, it is not clear how it happened.”  Images of infamous British Holocaust denier David Irving and others are featured in the film.

In June, Iran has announced a contest for satirical cartoons relating to the Holocaust as part of the Teheran International Cartoon Biennial. The winner is to be awarded a prize of $50,000 – a sum four times that of the previous year.

Last year, Iran announced a similar Holocaust denial cartoon exhibit just days before the Al Qaeda/Da’esh terrorist attack on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satire magazine in Paris.

Israeli officials and Knesset members expressed their disappointment with France and Italy for inviting and hosting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani – of all people – to visit on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“We all learned yesterday that the president of Iran, who we thought was a cruel and insensitive man who holds Holocaust denial exhibits, is actually such a sensitive person that the statues in Rome were covered in his honor, so as not to offend him,” Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein noted with sarcasm from the podium.

U.S. President Barack Obama was also blunt about the rising anti-Semitism around the world Wednesday in his speech at the Israel Embassy in Washington DC.

Obama declared that it would be necessary for American to take the lead in fighting the phenomenon. “We must confront the reality that around the world, anti-Semitism is on the rise,” Obama said. “We cannot deny it… I’ve made sure that the United States is leading the global fight against anti-Semitism,” he said.

Ira Forman, the US State Department’s special envoy to combat and monitor antisemitism, told JNS.org, “We’re really concerned this contest is used as a platform for Holocaust denial…and antisemitic speech,” Forman told JNS.org.

Yet in Europe, where Rouhani is being welcomed with open arms, at least some government leaders are still awake enough to warn others about what is coming.

Speaking in Brussels Wednesday, European Parliament President Martin Schulz told Jewish and European leaders, “It pains me that in today’s Europe Jews again fear for their lives; that they ask themselves ‘will I be safe going to a synagogue, or a Jewish job? Will my children be safe in a Jewish school… some consider leaving Europe for good because they no longer feel safe.”

It is the responsibility of Europe’s leaders to fight the “demons of anti-Semitism… intolerance” he said. “Some deny the Holocaust ever happened, they try to convince us that the pain and loss inflicted on innocent victims are illusions, are lies. What makes me angry every day is that these people are sitting in the parliament here. The Holocaust deniers are electted to the European parliament.”

At the start of January, following reports of the latest cartoon contest in Iranian media, Israel’s envoy to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-HaCohen wrote to Irina Bokova, director-general of the UN agency, to bring the issue to her attention. “It is time for UNESCO to demand accountability from the Iranian regime with regard to its malicious rhetoric, Holocaust denial and global negative activity.”