The Palestinian Authority is laying the groundwork for UNESCO to declare that the Western Wall is part of the Al Aqsa compound on the Temple Mount, according to a report by the Hebrew daily Yediot Acharonot.
Ramallah is a member of UNESCO but not of its executive committee, and the Palestinian Authority has circulated a draft resolution to be presented to UNESCO by six Arab states on the committee – Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Tunisia and the UAE.
A copy of the draft resolution obtained by the newspaper includes these clauses:
1. The Western Wall is part of “Plaza Buraq,” the Arabic name for the Western Wall.
2. The international community should condemn Israel for allowing citizens to bear arms during the recent violence;
3. The IDF and Israel should be condemned for suppression in the “capital of occupied Palestine.”
4. Israel should be condemned for excavations at the Temple Mount.
5. Israel should be condemned for “prohibiting freedom of worship at the Al Aqsa mosque and breaking the status quo.”
6. Israel should be condemned for allowing “Jewish extremists to attack Al-Aqsa,”
7. Israel should be condemned for planning to build a cable car to the Western Wall.
8. The Patriarchs’ Cave and Rachel’s Tomb should be declared as part of “Palestine.”
9. Israeli “settlers and extremists” should be condemned for violence.
That is a lot of condemnation, as well as lies.
Israel’s Ambassador to UNESCO, Simcha HaCohen, said that the draft resolution “pours fuel on the fire of incitement to terror.”
Te Palestinian Authority began a campaign more than five years to claim that Jews have no connection with the Western Wall. Laughable at first, the propaganda has escalated and spread.
Last year, PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud al-Habash told Israleli television:
Every piece of land Israel occupied in 1967 belongs to the Palestinian state. The Buraq Wall, too, will be under Palestinian sovereignty.