Update: It was ratified after all.
Some good news to wake up to: The ridiculous and offensive UNESCO draft resolution denying the Jewish links to the Temple Mount and Western Wall is reportedly set to be cancelled.
A UNESCO draft solution adopted last week which failed to acknowledge a Jewish connection to the Temple Mount is set to be cancelled and discussions reopened on the matter.
According to the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, which voted in favor of the contentious resolution on Jerusalem, Mexico has taken issue with the section of the resolution referring to Jerusalem’s holy sites only by their Islamic names.
As I said, good news. But I would like to remind everyone that the draft resolution was problematic for reasons other than this; As I posted last week, it mentions a number of other lies, including that Jews “storm” Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif, and that we are to blame for any violence and damage there. No-one seems to be objecting to this.
Also this is not good news:
Simultaneously, the Israeli Foreign Ministry announced that Mexico had switched their representative to UNESCO following a diplomatic scene in which Mexico’s representative to UNESCO—who is also Jewish—refused to vote in favor of the resolution and left the room.
Israel’s envoy to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, said, “We will not give up and fight to the end against all odds. Yesterday, I was in contact with the Mexican envoy who touched my heart and informed me in our last conversation that his dismissal is inevitable, but at least we can smile because we succeeded in changing Mexico’s position in the future.
“His dismissal is not good news for us, as he is a true friend of Israel, but a change in the historic voting pattern of Mexico is a moral and diplomatic achievement for Israel and a continued trend of erosion for support of the resolution.”
The Ynet report also mentions UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticizing the resolution, but claiming the Western Wall is Judaism’s holiest place.
Following the adoption of the draft resolution, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon distanced himself on Sunday from the fallout by coming out against the failure to reference the site using its Jewish epithet.
“The Secretary-General reaffirms the importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls for the three monotheistic religions and stresses the importance of the religious and historical link of the Jewish, Muslim and Christian peoples to the holy site,” said a statement read by the UN Spokesperson on behalf of Ban.
“The Al Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram al-Sharif, the sacred shrine of Muslims, is also the Har HaBayit—or Temple Mount—whose Western Wall is the holiest place in Judaism, a few steps away from the Saint Sepulcher church and the Mount of Olives, which is revered by Christians,” Ban added.
Looks like he just plagiarized from UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, who made the same glaring error.
