BICOM

UNESCO yesterday adopted a new resolution regarding  Jerusalem that is highly critical of Israeli policy.

The 58-member UNESCO Executive Board approved the resolution at a meeting in Paris yesterday, coinciding with Israel’s Independence Day.

Compared to the controversial 2016 UNESCO resolution, which was criticised in Israel and the Jewish community for omitting any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, the new resolution affirms “the importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls for the three monotheistic religions.”

The new resolution notes that the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem, “are of religious significance for Judaism, Christianity and Islam” but it calls them “Palestinian sites.”

The document refers to Israel as the “occupying power” in Jerusalem, which Israel has interpreted as suggesting that it has no legal or historical ties to any part of Jerusalem. The resolution does not mention Hamas, despite referring to “the military confrontations in and around the Gaza Strip and the civilian casualties caused” and “the continuous Israeli closure of the Gaza Strip”.

The resolution was submitted on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA) by Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and Sudan. The UK and US were among the ten countries voting against the resolution, 22 countries voted in favour and 23 abstained.

Israeli officials welcomed the fact that more countries abstained or voted against the resolution as voted for it. The Israeli Ambassador to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, hailed it as “an enormous diplomatic achievement”. But he added that the resolution had “no place in the family of nations, and certainly not in UNESCO”.

Germany reportedly failed in a bid to build consensus for a compromise resolution that the European and Arab countries could agree on, allowing the UK and other European countries to vote for the resolution. In March 2017, the UK issued a statement responding to anti-Israel bias in a different UN body – the Human Rights Council – saying: “If things do not change, in the future we will adopt a policy of voting against all resolutions concerning Israel’s conduct in the Occupied Syrian and Palestinian Territories.”