United Nations censures Israel

This article first appeared on The Media Line.

As part of their strategy to obtain a Palestinian state using diplomatic means, Palestinians welcomed a UN resolution that sharply criticized Israel for limiting Muslim access to Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound. The site, which is the flashpoint for bloodshed and violence amid mounting tensions over the holy site, is sacred to both Muslims and Jews.

The resolution, “deeply deplores the recent repression in East Jerusalem and the failure of Israel, the occupying power, to cease the persistent excavations and works in East Jerusalem particularly in and around the Old City.” UNESCO “strongly condemns Israeli aggression and illegal measures restricting freedom of worship and access to the holy Muslim site of the Al-Aqsa mosque.”

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said the resolution “aims to transform the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a religious confrontation and its adoption is a disgrace.” Israel also said the UN must condemn Palestinian stabbing and shooting attacks that have left 11 Israelis dead in the past month. More than 50 Palestinians have died, about half of them during attacks and the other half in clashes with Israeli soldiers.

UNESCO stands for the UN’s educational, scientific and cultural organization. It is a specialized UN agency that tries to build the “defenses of peace,” according to its website. It is UNESCO that declares “world heritage sites” and while its resolutions are not binding, they play a role in the Israeli-Palestinian propaganda wall.

In this case, Arab states including Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, who submitted the resolution on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, dropped a draft that read “affirms that the Buraq Plaza (Muslim name for the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site), is an integral part of al-Aksa Mosque/ al-Haram al-Sharif.”

UNESCO director general Irina Bokova pushed hard against the draft warning that it “could be seen to alter the status of the old city of Jerusalem and its walls and incite further tensions.”

She, backed by the US, got her way but the resolution did say the Mugrabi gate, the gate used by tourists to enter the al-Aqsa mosque plaza, is part of the Haram al-Sharif, a decision that angered Israel.

The site, located in the southeastern corner of the Old City of Jerusalem, is sacred to both faiths. Jews call it the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, and part of a retaining wall of the Second Temple. Muslims call (Buraq wall) part of Haram al-Sharif, referring to the compound's Al-Aqsa mosque as the holiest Islamic building outside Saudi Arabia. Jerusalem’s Old City and walls are on the UNESCO list of protected world heritage sites.

Morad Sudan, the head of the Palestinian National Commission for Education, Culture and Science was disappointed in the watered-down resolution.

“The draft was suggested in coordination with all of the Arab and Muslim members of UNESCO,” Sudan told The Media Line. “We wanted to declare the wall an integral part of the al-Aqsa compound as a first step in forbidding Jews from approaching the holy site. They pray there and slip written prayers into the cracks of the wall.”

While Jews can pray at the Western Wall, Israel has upheld a rule since 1967 that non-Muslims are not allowed to pray at the site. Rumors that Israel was planning to change that status quo were the spark that set off the current wave of Palestinian attacks that have left 11 Israelis dead. More than 50 Palestinians have also died, half of them alleged attackers, and half in clashes with Israeli troops.

Sheikh Kamal Khatib, deputy head of the Islamic movement in Jerusalem, said the decision not to go ahead with the original draft resolution was “very dangerous, and a waiver of Islamic and historical right.”

The President of the Supreme Islamic Council in Jerusalem, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, angered Jews when he questioned their ties to the site.

“Muslims must retain ownership of the Western Wall,” he told The Media Line. “Muslims used to pray facing the al-Aqsa mosque.”

The direction of Muslim prayer later changed to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

The Secretariat of the United Nations quoted the Deputy spokesman of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Farhan Haq, as saying: “The position of Ban Ki-moon is very clear in this regard, which calls for the need to maintain the current historical situation of the holy places.”