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Why UNESCO
Shouldn't Treat Jerusalem as a Weapon
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UNESCO's vote to deny Jewish and Christian connections to Jerusalem and
the Temple Mount is dismaying but not surprising. Cutting those connections
– understood by anyone with a passing knowledge of Judaism and Christianity
- has been a goal of Palestinians and their Arab and Muslim supporters for
decades.
Except for boilerplate about "affirming the importance of the Old
City and its walls for the three monotheistic faiths" the resolution
does not acknowledge that Jerusalem has any, much less unique,
significance to Jews and Christians.
The phrases "safeguarding of the cultural heritage of
Palestine," and "Al-Buraq Plaza 'Western Wall Plaza'" –in
quotes that mock the fact that the Western Wall is Judaism's holiest site -
show what the resolution is really about, adopting the narrative that
Jerusalem is sacred only to Muslims.
UNESCO has long condemned the "Judaization" of Judaism's
holiest city and now votes to place the Muslim narrative on a pedestal and
to ignore Jewish and Christian connections. But what is the Muslim
narrative?
UNESCO has adopted the narrative
that Jerusalem is sacred only to Muslims.
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For Islam, Jerusalem is less a holy city than a rallying cry and a prize to
be denied to others, especially Jews. Jerusalem is not mentioned in the
Qur'an at all and there is no explicit connection between the city and
Muhammad's life. The location of the "farthest mosque," which he
visited on the flying steed Al-Buraq, was not specified in the Qur'an but
only later when Jerusalem was already under Muslim control.
Muslim tradition preserves the idea that the earliest mosques originally
faced Jerusalem not Mecca, and also that Muhammad himself changed this. But
usurping Christian and Jewish connections to Jerusalem also date to the
beginning of Islam. The seventh-century Al-Aqsa mosque was built atop an
earlier Christian church, which stood above a Roman temple. All of this
stood on the platform built by King Herod to house the second Jewish
temple, where Jesus threw out the money-changers, which itself replaced the
temple of Solomon, built around 900 BCE.
Muslim interest in Jerusalem has
fluctuated over the centuries, always as a result of politics.
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The Muslim connection is far later than its predecessors', and Muslim
interest in Jerusalem has fluctuated over the centuries, always as a result
of politics. Though early Muslims regarded Jerusalem as one of three sacred
cities, after Mecca and Medina, its significance fell and was resurrected
only when it was used as a rallying call by Saladin, who wrested it back
from the Crusaders.
Wresting the city back from the Jews has been a rallying cry for
Palestinians and Muslims since the nineteenth century. Now the lie that
"al Aqsa is in danger" – allegedly threatened by Israeli
encroachments and archaeology – has been enshrined in a UNESCO resolution. Never
mind the fact that for over a decade Muslim authorities on the Temple Mount
have excavated into its heart, tearing out Christian, Jewish and earlier
remains to convert underground spaces into mosques, without the slightest
regard for history, much less the sensitivities of other faiths.
The UNESCO vote is harmful in two ways. For one, it shows how
Palestinians and their supporters will subvert any international
institution in order to vilify Israelis. More deeply, it is another example
of how the world has entered a dangerous period of historical revisionism,
where large and small lies undermine what is known about the past in order
to justify the present.
Palestinians and their supporters
will subvert any international institution in order to vilify Israelis.
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Russia has stated that its annexation of the Crimea and territorial
claims in the Ukraine and Baltic states will reconstitute
the mythical Russkiy
Mir or "Russian world," which is genetically and morally
superior to the mercantilist West. China lies to its people that the Communist
Party was instrumental in winning World War II, while Japanese
historical revisionism has long claimed that there was no massacre at
Nanking or exploitation of Korean "comfort women," that Japan
"liberated" Asia and was the "victim of American
aggression."
Lies about Israel are commonplace, not least of all claims of
"genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" perpetrated against
Palestinians. Defining genocide down from mass murder and away from any
association with millions of Jews murdered by Nazis has been a Palestinian
line for decades. Now Jerusalem – mentioned more than 800 times in the
Bible, and the direction of Jewish prayer for 2 thousand years – is on the
chopping block.
There are a few encouraging signs. Countries that usually vote against
Israel in the UN, like India, abstained. There have been a series of
condemnations from UNESCO's Director General Irina Bokova, who said,
"To deny, conceal or erase any of the Jewish, Christian or Muslim
traditions undermines the integrity of the site," and from figures
such as the Italian Prime Minister, Matteo
Renzi, who called the vote "incomprehensible, unacceptable and
wrong."
Few countries will be moved by the latest round of blustering
threats from the Palestinian Authority to introduce even more strident
anti-Israel resolutions and deliberately damage UNESCO further.
Supporters of peace should remind UNESCO that the true meaning of
Jerusalem is not as a prize or a weapon but as a shared place of holiness.
If Jerusalem can be disconnected from Jews and Christians then everything
is up for grabs.
Asaf Romirowsky is the executive
director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) and a fellow at
the Middle East Forum. Alexander Joffe is a Shillman-Ginsburg fellow of the
Middle East Forum.
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