UNESCO Wheels on Jews, <br>Casting Doubt on Logic <br>Of U.S. Participation

UNESCO was established “to contribute to peace and security by promoting international collaboration through education, science, and culture to further universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights.” In recent days, however, it has become a self-parody, passing one resolution after another defiling Israel only to demean itself.It began by calling for the Western Wall to be listed as an Islamic site, indeed as “an extension of the Al Aqsa Mosque.” When that absurdity was criticized even by its own Director-General, UNESCO settled for a double-barreled folly. It declared Me’arat haMachpelah, the Cave of the Biblical Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron, and Rachel’s Tomb outside Bethlehem, as “Muslim” sites. Six Arab UNESCO members – Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates – voted in favor.The Cave of Machpelah, the second holiest place for the Jewish people after the Temple Mount, locates its historic and religious prominence in the biblical text. The geographical and spiritual source of Jewish history in antiquity, Hebron, the biblical narrative recounts, marked the location where, centuries before the advent of Islam, Abraham purchased a burial cave for Sarah from Ephron the Hittite. It was the first parcel of land owned by the Jewish people in their promised land. Upon their deaths, according to Jewish tradition, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Rebecca and Leah were also buried there.Hebron was also embedded in Jewish antiquity as the site of David’s anointment as King of Israel. There he ruled for seven years before relocating his throne to Jerusalem. Centuries later, at the beginning of the Common Era, King Herod built the massive stone enclosure around the burial tombs that became the religious and spiritual magnet for Jewish pilgrims. Jews lived in Hebron for centuries until their removal by British authorities following the brutal Arab murder of 67 residents in 1929. Not until Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War was a Jewish presence, now numbering seven hundred, restored in the City of the Patriarchs.Given millennia of Jewish history in Hebron — despite persistent Muslim attempts to deny the past, restrict Jewish worship and annihilate the Jewish presence — the UNESCO resolution can only be seen as anti-Semitism, a particularly venomous one, even for UNESCO.Rachel’s Tomb has been recognized for nearly two millennia as the burial place of the Jewish matriarch, where Jewish women (especially) have sought solace from Rachel’s tears. It never was considered an Islamic holy site until twenty years ago, when it was named the Bilal ibn Rachel mosque (after Muhammad’s first muezzin) to placate Palestinian claims for a holy site of their own to occupy a place in their invented national tradition.It is hardly random that UNESCO would select the most ancient Jewish holy sites in the Land of Israel to convert to Islam. Its embrace of the Muslim precedent of denial – mosques built over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and the burial caves in Hebron – is a denial of Jewish history.Now that UNESCO has disclosed its wish to obliterate Jewish tradition from the most ancient Jewish holy sites in the Land of Israel, its hostility to Jews is undeniable. Ideologically, if not with guns and bombs, it has demonstrated an affinity with the Taliban and Islamic State, which also take pleasure in destroying the ancient temples, monuments, and artifacts of religions they despise. By that standard, to be sure, merely erasing Jewish history, as UNESCO has attempted, seems almost humane.But why expect anything different from the first United Nations Agency to admit the non-existent entity of “Palestine” into its embrace? Perhaps the Land of Oz is next. The United States should find another hang-out.Mr. Auerbach is writing a history of the New York Times, Zionism, and Israel.

UNESCO Wheels on Jews, <br>Casting Doubt on Logic <br>Of U.S. Participation

UNESCO Wheels on Jews, <br>Casting Doubt on Logic <br>Of U.S. Participation

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